The Observer
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Release Year:
2019
Story:
Dissident artist Hu Jie has managed to make more than 30 documentaries. Films like Though I Am Gone and Searching for Lin Zhao's Soul is vital to understanding Chinese history and society. Widely recognized as the first artist to dare talk about the Great Famine, the labor camps, and the Cultural Revolution, Hu Jie is considered China's first historical documentary filmmaker.
Dissident artist Hu Jie has managed to make more than 30 documentaries. Films like Though I Am Gone and Searching for Lin Zhao's Soul is vital to understanding Chinese history and society. Widely recognized as the first artist to dare talk about the Great Famine, the labor camps, and the Cultural Revolution, Hu Jie is considered China's first historical documentary filmmaker.
Casts & Crews:
Rita Andreetti
Directors
Runtime:
76
minutes
Language:
Tags:
Hu Jie, film about filmmaker, history, Anti-Rightist Movement
Director‘s Statement:
In 2013 I happened to meet a Chinese documentary director and painter, Hu Jie. When the door of his modest apartment opened, a whole world literally opened up before my eyes.
After our first meeting, I came to know that he was under special surveillance, and I realized that I had just met my first ever Chinese dissident.
I was impressed by the stubbornness that led his mission, no matter how dangerous the opponent or how tough the fight.
I had not known Hu Jie long, but I was totally amazed by his conduct. He gave me a magnifying glass to look at China, that country I was tenaciously trying to live in and understand.
I avidly devoured all of his films: a huge archive of urgent communication, historical philology, and humanist mission. Here I found priceless truths about the Chinese Great Famine and the Cultural Revolution; I recognized a part of the Chinese past that I had previously completely ignored.
That’s it. That is when I got framed. Now, just like him, I cannot escape the urgency of recounting this story, because what he is doing is simply vital for the identity of the Chinese people.
After a few years, I realized that my support and comprehension of his fight can be very important. I’m living where Hu Jie lives and I can understand the way he is forced to compromise his mission every day; not only Hu Jie himself but many others like him. Nobody else will dare to film his story, no Chinese can take the risk. In this way, I hope my presence can be the means to preserve his freedom of speech; this is what can help him fight his battle.
Hu Jie has done so much for me: his heroism has been key not only to my understanding of China but has learned a whole new perspective in my entire life.
I hope that through this documentary, Hu Jie could be someone else’s inspiration too.
After our first meeting, I came to know that he was under special surveillance, and I realized that I had just met my first ever Chinese dissident.
I was impressed by the stubbornness that led his mission, no matter how dangerous the opponent or how tough the fight.
I had not known Hu Jie long, but I was totally amazed by his conduct. He gave me a magnifying glass to look at China, that country I was tenaciously trying to live in and understand.
I avidly devoured all of his films: a huge archive of urgent communication, historical philology, and humanist mission. Here I found priceless truths about the Chinese Great Famine and the Cultural Revolution; I recognized a part of the Chinese past that I had previously completely ignored.
That’s it. That is when I got framed. Now, just like him, I cannot escape the urgency of recounting this story, because what he is doing is simply vital for the identity of the Chinese people.
After a few years, I realized that my support and comprehension of his fight can be very important. I’m living where Hu Jie lives and I can understand the way he is forced to compromise his mission every day; not only Hu Jie himself but many others like him. Nobody else will dare to film his story, no Chinese can take the risk. In this way, I hope my presence can be the means to preserve his freedom of speech; this is what can help him fight his battle.
Hu Jie has done so much for me: his heroism has been key not only to my understanding of China but has learned a whole new perspective in my entire life.
I hope that through this documentary, Hu Jie could be someone else’s inspiration too.
Casts & Crews
Rita Andreetti
Director
