SPARK

星火

Directed by Hu Jie

China Now / China / 2014 / Documentary / 101 mins / Mandarin with Chinese, English subtitles / HD / West Coast Premiere

SPARK

UltraStar Mission Valley
Sunday, May 1, 2016 5:10 pm

Description

Spark was an underground magazine published in 1960 by four young intellectuals who wanted to expose the devastating famine caused by Mao’s Great Leap Forward, a horrendous period of national suffering that is still unmentioned in China’s history textbooks today. This is filmmaking as urgent historical investigation: with a shoestring budget Hu Jie combines years of research, and a knack for getting people to talk without fear about the most taboo subjects in China’s recent past. His alternative oral history approach knits together courageous and frequently moving interviews with the magazine’s surviving editor, supporters, and readers, who were ready to sacrifice themselves to alert their countrymen to unprecedented disaster. –Shelly Kraicer, co-organizer of Cinema on the Edge

Co-presented by: the Chinese Program at the University of San Diego