North American Premiere!

Carma Hinton and Richard Gordon in Person

From 1964 to 1976, millions of young students rejected their parents for the paternal embrace of Chairman Mao and roamed the country to overthrow “capitalist roaders.” “Mao-thought” was promoted in documentaries as a miracle that could even cure deaf-mutes, while films, operas, and novels made students nostalgic for revolutions they had never experienced. The consequences of this Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution were enormous, from the scars it left on a generation of young Chinese to the ruthless pursuit of materialism in contemporary China. How could it have happened? As in their previous The Gate of Heavenly Peace (1997), the filmmakers refuse easy explanations and simplistic critique. With insight, passion, and objectivity, using rare footage and recent candid interviews with ex-Red Guards and their victims, they map the psychology of the Cultural Revolution and its participants, and capture the mentality of the time.