rape of nanking Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Sundance Interview: Nanking Producer Ted Leonsis
Filed under: Documentary », Independent », Sundance », Festival Reports », Scripts », Politics », Interviews », Cinematical Indie »
Nanking, a documentary about the 1937 invasion of the then-capital of China by the Japanese army, competed at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival in the documentary competition. Nanking producer Ted Leonsis sat down with Cinematical at Sundance to talk about the film (full disclosure: Leonsis is an executive with AOL, Cinematical's parent company).
Cinematical: The first question I have is about how you came to be involved with this film – it's my understanding that your involvement in this film was much more personal than a producer's role often is.
Ted Leonsis: I was on vacation with my family and went to a bookstore and everything was in French. And the owner had 45 days of the NYT and so I bought them all and read them all. And one of the things in there was an obituary that said, noted author Iris Chang had committed suicide, and as I read it I saw that she was married with two children; I'm married with two children, and I so I was drawn by that. And then I later threw the newspapers in the garbage and that obituary landed on top and as I was going in and out I kept seeing it. As we left I ran back in and grabbed it and stuck it in my briefcase. Then when I got home I did some research on her in Amazon, and bought all her books and was drawn to the story about Nanking.
More after the jump ...
Sundance Review: Nanking
Filed under: Documentary », Independent », Sundance », Theatrical Reviews », Festival Reports », Cinematical Indie »
In August of 1937, the Japanese army invaded China. By December 13th, they had defeated the Chinese army and invaded the nation's then-capital, Nanking. The events that followed, referred to as "the rape of Nanking," are documented in the film Nanking, showing at Sundance in the US Documentary competition. The structure of the film was put together largely through the journals and letters of a small group of missionaries, professors and doctors -- and a Nazi businessman, John Rabe -- who refused to evacuate the Nanking when the Japanese army invaded, choosing instead to band together to establish a "safe zone" within the city in order to protect the civilians who lived there.
Like Schindler's List and Hotel Rwanda, Nanking tells a tale of war-time horror through the story of people who tried to help. Directors Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman (with a script co-written by Elizabeth Bentley) bring the events of the invasion of Nanking to life through vintage footage, interviews with survivors, and a staged reading of excerpts from journals and letters by a group of actors including Woody Harrelson, Mariel Hemingway, Rosalind Chao and Jurgen Prochnow.
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