Repression at the hands of China provides the thrust for each of two documentaries that open today at the Two Boots Pioneer Theater (155 East Third Street, East Village).
Earnest and well-meaning but unexceptional, they are Danny Schechter's "Falun Gong's Challenge to China" and Robin Garthwait's "Tibet's Stolen Child."
Mr. Schechter's film promises more insight than it provides, and those who wonder why a reported 100 million people worldwide practice Falun Gong's combination of exercise and moral philosophy may come away with no more sense of its appeal than they would by listening to the endorsements of the adherents of any set of beliefs.
But the film provides ample testimony that, contrary to China's position, Falun Gong is not a cult; and photographic evidence and oral statements support Falun Gong's contention that China's government has tortured its followers. Though given to repetition, Mr. Schechter pursues his story in journalistic fashion, with film of the Falun Gong founder, Li Hongzhi, comments by high Chinese officials and an effort to trace the history of their conflict as well as to glimpse the future.
"Tibet's Stolen Child," beginning with a disclosure that it was made in cooperation with the International Campaign for Tibet and ending with directions to a Web site and the exhortation, "Get involved," is frankly one-sided.
Rather protracted, the film, narrated by the actor Patrick Stewart, retells the story of the disappearance of a 6-year-old boy, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, shortly after he was identified in 1995 by the Dalai Lamai as the 11th Panchen Lama, described as the second most important person in Tibet.
China, the documentary says as it explains the country's rule of Tibet and the significance of the boy's education, now denied to him, apparently has him and his family under house arrest and permits no representatives of other governments to see him.
In its hopeful quest for enlightenment on a solution to Chinese-Tibetan issues, "Tibet's Stolen Child" looks to longstanding trouble spots like Northern Ireland and South Africa and draws on the opinions of six Nobel peace laureates, including the Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who counsels negotiation.
'Falun Gong's Challenge to China'
Directed by Danny Schecter. Unrated, 56 minutes.
'Tibet's Stolen Child'
Directed by Robin Garthwait. Unrated, 60 minutes.