Friday, May 3, 2013

Film: Center for Asian and Pacific Studies hosts 'The Revolutionary ...

Posted on02 May 2013.

Sidney Rittenberg first went to China as an American soldier during World War II but stayed after the war?s end. He spent 35 years in China, 16 of which were spent imprisoned after false accusations of being an American spy, and he is the first American ever allowed to join the Chinese Communist Party. His extraordinary life led to the 2011 documentary, ?The Revolutionary,? about Rittenberg?s experiences in China.

The University of Oregon Center for Asian and Pacific Studies is screening this film, along with another Stourwater Pictures documentary ?Fumiko Hayashida: The Woman Behind the Symbol,? Friday, May 3 at 6 p.m. in PLC 180. Following the screenings, Rittenberg and ?The Revolutionary? filmmakers Irv Drasnin, Lucy Ostrander and Don Sellers will attend a panel discussion to talk about the project and Rittenberg?s life.

Rittenberg, now 91 years old, witnessed and participated in the Chinese communist and nationalist revolution of the 1930s and ?40s as a translator before Joseph Stalin accused him of being a spy, leading to Rittenberg?s imprisonment until Stalin?s death. It took filmmakers five years and 26 hours of interviews with Rittenberg to create ?The Revolutionary.?

Drasnin has worked on PBS documentary TV shows ?Frontline? and ?The American Experience? and has garnered a Director?s Guild of America Award and a Writer?s Guild of America Award. Ostrander, who also directed and produced ?Fumiko Hayashida,? was the first American student filmmaker to work with the China Film Co-Production Corportation with her 1984 documentary short ?Witness to Revolution: The Story of Anna Louise Strong.? She has since worked on many Asia-focused documentaries. Cinematographer and editor Sellers worked on both ?Fumiko Hayashida? and ?The Revolutionary,? and has worked on PBS?s ?Frontline? and ?Discover.?

?Fumiko Hayashida? documents 97-year-old Fumiko Hayashida?s return to the central Idaho internment camp where she was confined during WWII.

The screenings, which were co-sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, Oregon Humanities Center, School of Journalism and Communication, UO Libraries, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, Cinema Studies, Judaic Studies, Asian Studies, Department of International Studies and the Chinese Flagship Program, are free to attend, though seating is limited.

Source: http://uwire.com/2013/05/02/film-center-for-asian-and-pacific-studies-hosts-the-revolutionary-subject-filmmakers/

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