Film Screening: "The Day of Reckoning" (Xu Xing, 2018) + talk with the director

Throughout his career, Xu has been telling and reflecting on stories of the Cultural Revolution from an individual perspective, paying special attention to those considered ordinary and often at the bottom of Chinese society.

About the film:

This documentary (Chinese title: 腊月三十日到来), directed by Beijing-based writer and filmmaker Xu Xing, tells the love story of a married couple against the backdrop of political events in China since 1949.

Xu Xing aims to use the couple's personal fate to reflect the history of a nation and to preserve a narrative that has been overlooked in the official version of Chinese history.

About the director:

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Xu Xing, born in 1956 in Beijing, began his career as a novelist and writer. His publication Theme Variations garnered critical acclaim at the Beijing University Arts Festival and earned him international recognition and awards, such as the Tucholsky Foreign Literature Prize (PEN International) and the "Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres" awarded by the French Ministry of Culture for his translated works. He has held fellowships and residencies in Germany, France, and the United States.

After transitioning to filmmaking, his documentaries were selected for film festivals and won awards from the Korean Independent Documentary Forum (AIF). His works have been widely showcased at institutions such as Harvard University, Yale University, and Columbia University in the U.S., as well as in Berlin, Rome, and Aix-en-Provence in Europe.

Resources:

The Duke Library has a collection of Xu Xing's works, including copies of Theme Variations in Chinese  (无主题变奏)  as well as in English (“Variations without a theme” and other stories). Xu previously visited Duke in 2015 to show 罪行摘要 (“Summary of Crimes”).