Under Mao's Red Sun:
China's Cultural Revolution on Film

A series of five documentary films examines the historical context and life during the tumultuous Cultural Revolution (1966-76). These documentaries focus on the people—Red Guards, victims of persecution, artists, and ordinary citizens—whose lives were fundamentally changed by Mao's Revolution.

The Under Mao's Red Sun film series is presented by Asia Society's Cultural Programs in association with the Center on US-China Relations.

Venue
Asia Society and Museum
725 Park Avenue at 70th Street, New York, NY 10021

Tickets
$7 members/seniors/students; $11 non-members.
Asia Society Box Office: (212) 517-ASIA
Buy tickets online

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Friday, September 12, 2008, 7:00 pm
MORNING SUN
Directed by Carma Hinton, Geremie R. Barmé, and Richard Gordon
USA/England/France. 2003. 117 min. Digibeta.

From the makers of The Gate of Heavenly Peace, this documentary combines rarely-seen footage from newsreels, propaganda films, and old documentaries, as well as first-person accounts by former Red Guards and their victims, to create an insightful chronicle of traumatic events during the Cultural Revolution. (In English and Chinese with English subtitles.)
"Compelling and illuminating."—Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"A huge contribution to our understanding of what was going on in the minds of those teenage Red Guards." –Sight and Sound

Image courtesy of Long Bow Group Archives.

Friday, September 19, 2008, 7:00 pm
YANG BAN XI—THE EIGHT MODEL WORKS
Directed by Yan Ting Yuen
The Netherlands. 2005. 90 min. 35mm.

Yang Ban Xi were propaganda model plays created under the leadership of Mao's wife Jiang Qing. Stunning Beijing opera motifs, virtuosic ballet sequences, and Western orchestral music combine to create spectacles that glorify peasants, soldiers, and the Party. During the Cultural Revolution, these plays and their vividly-colored widescreen film adaptations were the only ones audiences could see. This documentary includes footage of these sensational films as well as interviews with stars made famous by them. The memory of the Yang Ban Xi brings forth both distress and a sense of nostalgia. (In English and Chinese with English subtitles.)
"Absorbing, shrewdly intelligent."—New York Times

Friday, September 26, 2008, 7:00 pm
CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION
Directed by David Hinton
UK. 1995. 85 min. DVcam.

Winner of a BAFTA award (the highest British film/television award), this documentary reunites classical musicians who studied at Beijing's Central Conservatory of Music but spent most of their time forming Red Guard units and criticizing their teachers during the Cultural Revolution. Eventually sent to the countryside for hard labor, the now middle-aged friends speak of the period with a mixture of regret, anger, and nostalgia. (In English and Chinese with English subtitles.)
"Outstanding documentary... unforgettable story."—Independent on Sunday

Saturday, October 11, 2008, 3:00 pm
CHUNG KUO CHINA
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
Italy. 1972. 207 min. Digibeta.

In 1972, European art cinema master Antonioni went to China to make a documentary for Italian television. The resulting film enraged the Communist authorities, who called the filmmaker reactionary, anti-Chinese, and imperialist for showing "barren farmlands, lonely elderlies, tired animals, and broken houses." The masses were mobilized in a major campaign to criticize a film they had never seen and a filmmaker they had never heard of. The film, not shown in China until 2004 and now rarely seen in the West, is a significant historical text that provides glimpses of a largely inaccessible country during the Cultural Revolution. (In Italian with English subtitles.)
"Chung Kuo China is a film about a China seen but not known, observed, but not explained, and that is its wonderful power and its secret happiness."—Film scholar Sam Rohdie

This screening of Chung Kuo China (1972) is supported in part by the Italian Cultural Institute and Cineteca Nazionale, Rome, Italy.

Image: Michelangelo Antonioni, courtesy of Anthology Film Archives.

Saturday, October 18, 2008, 7:00 pm
RED ART
Directed by Hu Jie, Ai Xiaoming
China. 2008. 70 min. DVcam.

Under Mao's leadership, art was made to serve the "workers, peasants, soldiers, and the cause of socialism." A large amount of artwork, including billboard-scaled paintings and mass-produced posters, was created to promote the Party's ideology. In this film, the filmmakers—two of China's most active independent documentary filmmakers—talk to artists, including Liu Chunhua (who created the famous painting-turned-poster Mao Goes to Anyuan) about their participation. Other interview subjects include former Red Guards, academics, and collectors of Cultural Revolution relics and memorabilia who discuss the significance of these artworks then and now. (In Chinese with English subtitles.)
Director Hu Jie in person for Q&A.

RELATED EVENTS

Reel China, 4th Documentary Biennial
Chinese filmmakers and scholars share their latest works, giving a glimpse of China that the Olympic media coverage never showed.

At New York University
Co-presented by the Department of Cinema Studies and the Center for Religion and Media
October 17-18, 23-24, 2008
Cinema Studies Screening Room
New York University
721 Broadway, 6th floor, NYC
For information and schedule, visit http://cinema.tisch.nyu.edu/page/news.html or http://www.nyu.edu/fas/center/religionandmedia/ or call (212) 998-1600.

At Columbia University
Co-sponsored by Weatherhead East Asian Institute and The Arts Initiative
October 24-25, 2008
Pupin Hall 301
Columbia University
538 West 120th Street, NYC
For information and schedule, visit http://www.columbia.edu/cu/weai/reel-china08.html or call (212) 854-6916.