Mao and cinema: French festival explores how 1968 young radicals inspired by Cultural Revolution were portrayed in films
Beneath a large portrait of Mao Zedong, a group of students begin a discussion about their "eternal struggle" with the enemy. Using dense ideological language, these young activists ponder the new era in which they are to build their utopia.
"Death to examinations," they shout, as they walk around their campus, wrecking classrooms along the way.
With another section focusing on documentaries about social movements around the world in the mid- to late 1960s, the festival set out to explore "other 1968s" besides the one that saw civil unrest unfold on the cobblestone streets of Paris in May of that year.
Slogans daubed on walls across the French capital back then included: "Be realistic, demand the impossible"; "Beneath the paving stones, the beach"; "Run comrade, the old world is behind you". But the upheavals were much more than just a French or European affair. Chinese political ideology - in this case, the extreme doctrines behind the chaotic Cultural Revolution - had found a foothold in the so-called first world.
The programme at the Cinema du Reel festival revealed how Mao and China captivated young radicals from that era.
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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