Screen/Society--Cine-East: East Asian Cinema--"Sparks of Fire"

Wednesday, April 1, 2015 - 3:00pm to 4:45pm
Screen/Society--Cine-East: East Asian Cinema--"Sparks of Fire"

Film Screening:

 

Sparks of Fire

(Hu Jie, 2013, 100 min, China, in Chinese with English subtitles, Color, DVD)

-- Introduced by Prof. Xi Lian, Duke Divinity School!

Sparks of Fire introduces viewers to survivors of Chairman Mao’s "Great Leap Forward" - his campaign to transform the country from an agrarian economy to an industrial one - and the resulting Great Famine. Since information about the famine had been suppressed by the authorities, a number of teachers and students took it upon themselves to publish Sparks of Fire, an underground periodical that told the truth about the famine and the realities of life under Chairman Mao. For the great risks they took, nearly everyone affiliated with the periodical, as well as suspected sympathizers, was arrested and imprisoned for lengthy sentences. Decades later, the survivors relate their stories to filmmaker Hu Jie in this no-holds-barred documentary about one of the darkest moments in the history of the Chinese Communist Party.

Cost: Free and open to the public.

Sponsors: The Asian/Pacific Studies Institute (APSI), the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image (AMI), and the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (AMES).

Bryan Center Griffith Film Theater