1428
by Haibin Du, 2009, 117 minutes.
In Mandarin with English subtitles.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010, 7:00 pm
Spurlock Museum, Knight Auditorium, 600 S. Gregory Street, Urbana, IL
Discussion led by Kevin Lee (Vice President of Programming and Education, dGenerate Films).
Description:
Awarded as the Best Documentary at the 2009 Venice International Film Festival, 1428 is a stunning exploration of the 8.0 earthquake that shook China’s Sichuan province in 2008, causing 70,000 deaths and 375,000 casualties. Directed by Du Haibin, 1428 goes beyond the filtered official visits portrayed in mainstream media, documenting the aftermath some seven months after the Great Sichuan Earthquake took place at exactly 14:28 on May 12, 2008. While villagers are preparing for the Lunar New Year, and promises made for housing everyone through the winter seem tough to keep, a never-ending parade of tourists arrive with New Year‘s Day, buying DVDs of the most horrific scenes, souvenir albums of corpses being pulled out of the ruins, and photo-taking in front of Beichuan, the town most severely hit, where tens of thousands of people perished in seconds.
Resources:
Official website: dGenerate Films has film descripton, credits, and trailer