abbyville

Today at 6:00 PM, we showed the film to about 30 audiences, not bad for a Friday evening documentary, especially when the film is not widely known. It’s days like this make me feel that I have the best job in the world. From knowing about Linzhao to reading about Philip Pan’s books and to actually showing the film, all seemed a little bit surreal. I was amazed by how quickly we mobilized the peer organizations to present the film in such a short time. Gwen is truly our super woman.

One audience came to me and said, “this film should be on TV, people should know about her”. I also saw audience came out of the screening room with tear in their eyes.

“How did you get through that?” this is not just a question for an individual, it is also a question to a nation. (Zhang Yihe)

About this screening event:

C4 is proud to present the US Premier Searching for Lin Zhao’s Soul, AKA In Search of Lin Zhao’s Soul 尋找林昭的靈魂 (2004) in Mandarin with English subtitles.

This documentary film is about the outstanding Beijing University student Lin Zhao, who was labeled a rightist when she criticized the Anti-Rightist Campaign in 1950s. She was imprisoned and later executed. In Philip Pan’s recent book “Out of Mao’s Shadow”, two chapters were written about this documentary, quoting the filmmaker Hu Jie about Lin Zhao: “(the film is) inspired by her courage, and her uncompromising sense of justice … It was extraordinary that a great woman like Lin Zhao once lived in China… I thought she was a national treasure.”

This film is co-presented by World Affairs Councils (WACSF), Asian American Women Artists Association (AAWAA), International Museum of Women (IMOW), Oakland Asian Cultural Center (OACC), Center for Chinese Studies (CCS) in UC Berkeley.

這部紀錄片記述了北京大學一名出色的學生–林昭。 20世紀50年代，由於批判當時的反右運動，她被打成右派分子，被投入監獄並最終被處死。在潘公凱最近出版的”走出毛澤東的影子”一書中，有兩個章節是描寫這部紀錄片的。書中引用了該片製片人胡杰對於林昭的評價：”（這部電影）的靈感來自於她的勇敢，以及對真理的不妥協態度…能有像林昭這樣偉大的女性生活在中國實在是件幸事…我認為她是國家的瑰寶。”