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The forgotten children of China’s prisoners

10 minutes

Take the Five

3 minutes

EXCLUSIVE

Sundays with Riki

19 minutes

Random events

31 minutes

Las del diente

5 minutes

Aeon for Friends

Find out more

With their father in prison, Wei, Yan and Won are invisible to the Chinese state

Twin sisters Wei and Yan and their younger brother Won are left on their own when their father is imprisoned for manslaughter. Like other children from poor families in China whose parents have ended up in prison or executed, the Zhang siblings face a bleak future. The children of the incarcerated are frequently abandoned by their extended families, judged by society for the deeds of their parents, and receive no social safety net from the Chinese government. The situation is particularly grave for those who don’t have state-issued identification, which prevents them from entering school and eventually finding work. For some of these children, the only hope for safety and stability is Sun Village, a privately and NGO-funded programme that houses and cares for children of Chinese convicts. This affecting short documentary joins the Zhangs at the moment when their father, who is facing a possible death sentence, makes the wrenching decision to have them taken to Sun Village. Uncertain of their father’s fate and their own future, the Zhangs attempt to find solid footing in a society that hardly acknowledges their existence.

Director: Kaspar Astrup Schröder

Producer: Katrine A Sahlstrøm

Aeon for Friends

Find out more

Chase rolling hills and windmills on a jazzy ride through the California countryside

Interstate 5, the primary highway on the West Coast of the United States, runs for more than 1,000 miles between Mexico and Canada, through California, Oregon and Washington. In this experimental short film, the US filmmaker Conner Griffith takes the Californian stretches of the highway, and flips, spins, intercuts and speeds them up to exhilarating effect, set to a vigorous rendition of Take the ‘A’ Train, performed by the US jazz pianist Richard Tee. The video cleverly juxtaposes quintessentially East Coast urban music with West Coast rural imagery but, more than anything, it’s a wildly fun ride.

Video by Conner Griffith

Score: Richard Tee – Take the A Train

Aeon for Friends

Find out more

‘You wanna get rid of me?’ When the time comes to move mom into assisted living

During their weekly Sunday breakfast together, Ivy discovers that her octogenarian mother Riki is losing her memory. Soon after, Ivy decides that Riki would be better off moving out of the cozy Brooklyn apartment where she lives alone, and into an assisted living community in the Bronx, closer to Ivy’s own home. But, of course, when it comes to big family decisions, nothing is ever quite that easy. Ivy is making the request out of love, but Riki – resistant every step of the way – thinks her daughter is being controlling. When the time for a trial run at the community arrives, Ivy’s siblings start to question whether the move is premature, while Riki’s neighbours suggest that she’ll never be back. These delicate interpersonal dynamics are skilfully explored in this short documentary by New York-based filmmaker Brandon Barr. A tender and intimate portrait of ageing and the complexities of familial love, Sundays with Riki is likely to resonate with anyone who has helped to care for – or just cares about – an elderly relative.

Director: Brandon Barr

Producer: Max Mooney

Colourist: Anthony Riso

Aeon for Friends

Find out more

A classic film finds order in randomness with the aid of some improbably elaborate sets

The Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC) was formed in 1956 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the mission to create science-education materials for US high-school classrooms. In this PSSC film from 1961, the physics professors J N Patterson Hume and Donald Ivey of the University of Toronto deploy their expertise – as well as some seriously elaborate sets – to demonstrate how, with enough data, highly predictable patterns can emerge from unpredictable events. This version of Random Events has been visually and aurally enhanced by the Aeon Video team. For more elaborate educational wizardry from the PSSC, watch Frames of Reference.

Director: John Friedman

Visual restoration: Tamur Qutab

Audio restoration: Adam D’Arpino

Aeon for Friends

Find out more

A magical mystery trip through the complex connections in women’s bodies

‘Girls are weird. Babies are weird. Bodies are extra weird,’ says the Spanish animator Ana Pérez López. In Las del Diente, she uses excerpts from candid conversations with three women as a canvas for a refreshingly honest and unapologetic meditation on modern womanhood. The anecdotes are enriched with hallucinatory animated sequences and percussive interludes, transforming their conversations about social pressure and biological anomalies into a surreal celebration of being female, in all its multitudes – from having your body treated like a business to contending with deeply conflicted feelings about having children.

Video by Ana Pérez López

Aeon for Friends

Find out more

With their father in prison, Wei, Yan and Won are invisible to the Chinese state

Twin sisters Wei and Yan and their younger brother Won are left on their own when their father is imprisoned for manslaughter. Like other children from poor families in China whose parents have ended up in prison or executed, the Zhang siblings face a bleak future. The children of the incarcerated are frequently abandoned by their extended families, judged by society for the deeds of their parents, and receive no social safety net from the Chinese government. The situation is particularly grave for those who don’t have state-issued identification, which prevents them from entering school and eventually finding work. For some of these children, the only hope for safety and stability is Sun Village, a privately and NGO-funded programme that houses and cares for children of Chinese convicts. This affecting short documentary joins the Zhangs at the moment when their father, who is facing a possible death sentence, makes the wrenching decision to have them taken to Sun Village. Uncertain of their father’s fate and their own future, the Zhangs attempt to find solid footing in a society that hardly acknowledges their existence.

Director: Kaspar Astrup Schröder

Producer: Katrine A Sahlstrøm

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