It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Look what I found in my Inbox today!

"Dear Friends,

We are happy to announce that the 10th Russian Film Week is coming to New York. Artsy flicks and political mavericks will be at the core of the festival program this year that opens on Friday, December 3rd and runs through Thursday, December 9th.

2010 screening venues include theaters at the School of Visual Arts, the New York Institute of Technology (formerly Clearview's 62nd & Broadway Cinema) in Manhattan and Millennium Theatre in Brooklyn. The 10th Russian Film Week will introduce the audience to 13 feature films, representing the best of Russia’s cinematography from 2009 and 2010.

Some of the anticipated film screenings at the 10th Annual Film Week include “Burnt by the Sun 2”, a follow-up to the 1994 Oscar-winning anti-Stalinist drama by a veteran director, actor and producer Nikita Mikhalkov. “Crush,” a film made up of five short love narratives directed by the leaders of Russia’s ‘new wave’ of filmmakers Boris Khlebnikov, Ivan Vyrypaev, Petr Buslov, Alexey German Jr, and Kirill Serebrennikov, critically acclaimed “Wolfy” (“Volchok”) by Vasily Sigarev, the Grand Prix winner at the Open Russian Film Festival in Sochi, an international premiere of the most controversial Russian film of the decade “Russia – 88“ as well as the London Film Festival Award Winner “How I Ended This Summer”.

Roman Karimov’s romantic comedy “Inadequate People” (“Neadekvatnie ludi”) will pleasantly surprise American movie goers. The winner of the People’s Choice Award and Grand Prix Award at the Window to Europe Film Festival, the film was recognized by the Guild of Film Critics as the best directorial debut and received the best actor and the best supporting actor duo awards.

The 10th Annual Russian Film Week will offer a unique opportunity for a meet-and-greet with the actors, directors and screenwriters of the participating films. A renowned actor Yuriy Stoyanov will present “Man by the Window” where he stars in the leading role. Alexey Serebryakov, the star of “Zolotoe Sechenie,” will discuss his experience of filming in Cambodia. Garik Sukachev, a veteran musician with a cult-like following among his fans, will present his recent directorial work,“The House of Sun” and may even sing for his audience.

We hope you will enjoy our film selection.

The screening of the films has been made possible by Fox International Productions, Film Movement, Latida Films, Kino International as well as other international and Russian distributors and production companies.

For more information on the event, venues, films or tickets, log onto www.RussianFilmWeekNYC.com or contact us at 646-292-7119 or email: info@russianfilmweeknyc.com.

Sincerely yours,

10th Russian Film Week in New York Org. Committee"

Splendid, splendid, splendid!

A Taste of Tlep

Click here, here, and here for several video clips of the Tlep performance. We apologize for the poor quality!

An Evening with Tlep

On Wednesday, November 3rd, The Birch was proud to co-sponsor, with Columbia University's Global Health Research Center of Central Asia (GHRCCA) and the Consulate General of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kazakh Quartet "Tlep." As the sun set over Low Library, the J.D. Satow Room of Lerner Hall was quickly filled with eager Columbia students and Kazakh families invited by the Consulate. Since 2004, the Quartet has performed in Australia, Spain, Russia, Jordan, Japan, Turkey, and now, the United States. We greatly enjoyed listening to the talented kobyz (qobyz) players and thank them and their young guest for their inspired performance.

Harriman Undergraduate Fellowship Program Reminder

It is that time of the year again! The Harriman Institute is still accepting applications for their fellowship program. The Institute will provide up to $2500 for you to conduct research in the post-Soviet and/or East-Central European regions over the 2010-2011 winter or spring vacation. If you have a serious interest in this region and a project in mind (senior thesis!), please do not forget to apply. The deadline is Friday, November 5th by 5:00 pm. Please contact Lydia Hamilton (lch2111@columbia.edu) with any questions or concerns. For more information about the program, click here. As Rebekah mentioned last time, remember to take many photographs of your journey and send them to us at thebirchjournal@gmail.com!

Fall is here and so is TLEP!

The Birch Journal,

Columbia University's Global Health Research Center of Central Asia,

and the Consulate General of the Republic of Kazakhstan

present an evening of traditional Kazakh music

THE KAZAKH QUARTET “TLEP”

Wednesday, November 3, 5:30pm

J.D. Satow Room, 5^th floor, Lerner Hall

2920 Broadway, New York, NY 11027

*Free and open to the public. For those without Columbia ID cards, please request a free entry ticket from the CUArts ticket will-call booth next to Lerner’s turnstile entrance.

For more information:

http://www.eng.filarmonia-astana.kz/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=9&Itemid=17

Kazakhstan, Health, and Lunch

Dear Birch Enthusiasts!

I am delighted to inform you about a brown-bag lecture next month. Here is the official invitation:

*****

The Culture, Religion and Communications Unit at Columbia University’s Global Health Research Center of Central Asia is launching its series of speaker presentations this Fall 2010 as well as organizing a conference in Spring 2011. The theme for this lecture series and conference is “Taboo & Stigma: Perceptions of Health and Disease in Central Asia.” The first lunch lecture is:

The History of Medicine and Health in Modern Central Asia
Presentation by Dr. Paula A. Michaels
Associate Professor of Russian/Soviet history, University of Iowa
Friday, November 5, 2010 12:00-1:30pm, 1219 IAB
(420 W. 118th St., New York, NY, 10027)
Co-sponsored by GHRCCA & the Harriman Institute
Open to the Public, please RSVP to ah2883@columbia.edu

Incorporating elements of Islamic, shamanic, Indian, and Chinese medical systems, as well as modern biomedicine, twentieth-century Kazakhstan offers a rich field for inquiry into the use of medicine as what historian Daniel Headrick describes as a "tool of empire." Kazakhstan provides a vivid case study in knowledge transfer and cross-cultural contact, as the Soviet state and Communist Party used improved access to biomedical care and upward mobility for indigenous medical workers in an attempt to win the support of the local population for the Soviet project. Moscow's effort to entrench Soviet power in part through the use of medical and public health initiatives met with considerable success, as methods that ranged from didactic to violent drove indigenous forms of healing underground. A syncretic system emerged in which Kazakhs continued to turn to both biomedical caregivers and ethnomedical practitioners.

GHRCCA’s Culture, Religion, and Communication (CRC) Unit is committed to fostering culturally specific and culturally-inspired approaches to health-related research in Central Asia.

For more about the lecture and CRC Unit, visit: http://ghrcca.columbia.edu/en/node/118.

This lecture is part of the CRC’s 2010-2011 lecture series and conference “Taboo and Stigma: Perceptions of Health and Disease in Central Asia.” The conference will take place in April 2011 and is co-sponsored by Columbia’s Global Centers.

For more about the conference, visit: http://globalcenters.columbia.edu/conferences.


*****

This is a great opportunity to meet individuals at Columbia who are interested in Central Asia and have your cake too (well, a Milano sandwich to be precise). Bring your friends and meet me there!

-Tanah

Welcome home, comrades!

The Birch is back! We had many adventures this summer and look forward to sharing them with you. Until then, enjoy these stunning photographs available at boston.com. They are from a photographic survey conducted by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863-1944).