This Upper Division, seminar-style class introduces students to the modern history and politics of Southeast Asia, from the 1940s to the 2010s, through the lens of cinema and the frame of memory. From American B-Movies to Japanese anti-war features, media monarchs to Indie film-makers, spectral spouses to exorcist monks, Cambodian Claymation to Indonesia film noir, we explore cinema as a vehicle of propaganda, remembrance, experimentation, repression, expression and resistance – but most of all, as a theater of memory. Our line-up includes Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, with perspectives on Burma from the US, Japan and Taiwan, and Sino Indonesian and Hmong Thai movies. All course films and texts will be made available free to all UC Berkeley students on our bCourse site, via live-streaming and Youtube.