View Additional Info DVD Release Schedule and Descriptions (photo from Red River Valley) Country Teachers, DVD Release Date: June 24, 2003   Country Teachers tells the story of a young teacher who takes her first teaching job at a school in a rural village. In poor regions of China, educators are volunteers, without pay and benefits. This film follows a new teacher, from her initial disappointment of being placed in the hills, to her gradual acceptance by fellow teachers. Just as she begins to understand the difficulties of educating children without funding, she realizes the school is manipulating literacy test results to secure a much-needed financial bonus. She reports the dishonest practice to higher-ups and becomes ostracized by the other teachers. She finally earns back their respect when an essay she writes for a major newspaper brings attention to the crisis in rural schools and fame to this school in particular. The film portrays the harsh Catch 22 of rural education in China. The DVD is coincidentally being released at a time when American schools are facing their own cyclical funding crisis with some schools closing a month early to due to lack of funding.     Red River Valley, DVD Release Date: July 29, 2003   Shot against the epic scale of the beautiful Tibetan landscape, Red River Valley begins with the story of a young Han woman, Snow Dawa, who is rescued by an old Tibetan woman. Snow Dawa moves into the old woman’s yurt and is immersed into the hospitality of the Tibetan people. She soon falls in love with her rescuer’s son. The film’s main thrust shifts when Snow Dawa rescues two British scientists from an avalanche. One of the British men falls in love with Tibet while the other prepares for an invasion to “liberate” Tibet from China. The latter half of the film shows the military battle that ensues. Unlike recent Hollywood films about Tibet, such as Seven Years in Tibet and Kundun, Red River Valley is distinctive in that it depicts the British invasion in 1904, instead of the Chinese invasion of 1959. The director of the film, Feng Xianing, is a fierce Chinese loyalist who loathes what he believes is the Western inability to look at itself before it criticizes others. The film may take on special meaning in light of recent world events in Iraq.     Postmen in the Mountains, DVD Release Date: August 26, 2003   A magnificently photographed and sensitive film, this is a very simple story, but is both age-old and contemporary. A father prepares to hand his 112-mile mail route through remote mountain villages in the remote mountains of Hunan, China over to his son. At dawn, the two embark on the three-day roundtrip on foot. It’s a road film, but the highway is replaced with a mountain path. The viewer meets the various townsfolk and others the postman has served over the years. Their admiration and love for him and the purpose he serves as a postman provides the son with a new and profound understanding of his father. Additional Info Historic Chinese Films Debut on DVDCelebration of Chinese Cinema ... DVD Release Schedule and Descriptions Television Broadcast Schedule The International Channel Top of Press Release