Hu Jie: China’s Invisible History
Though none of his works have been publicly shown in China, Hu Jie (pictured) is one of his country’s most noteworthy filmmakers. He is best known for his trilogy of documentaries about Maoist China, which includes “Searching for Lin Zhao’s Soul” (2004), telling the now-legendary story of a young Christian woman who died in prison for refusing to recant her criticisms of the Party during the Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957; “Though I Am Gone” (2007), about a teacher who was beaten to death by her own students at the outset of the Cultural Revolution in 1966; and “Spark” (2013), describing a doomed underground publication in 1960 that tried to expose the Great Leap famine, which killed upward of 30 million people. Recently, Hu sat down for an interview with Ian Johnson.
