A Chronicle of My Cultural Revolution

Xu Xing

Release year: 2007

Run time: 80 mins

Film type: Documentary

In 1972, Xu Xing wrote the first love letter of his life and sent it to a girl in school, whose parents had been sent to the countryside. Not knowing, what to do with it, she showed the anonymous letter to her teacher. Xu Xing was identified as author through his handwriting, and was detained…

In this autobiographical piece, Xu Xing tells the story of his own experiences of the Cultural Revolution by tracing his personal encounters of the past in contemporary China.

Xu Xing, born 1956 in Beijing, started his career as a novelist and writer. His publication Variation Without a Theme won him accolades at the Beijing University Art Festival and international acclaim and awards such as the Tucholsky Prize for Foreign Literature (Pen International) and “Order of the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres” from the French Ministry of Culture for his translated work.

He has held fellowships and author-in-residence positions in Germany, France and the US. After turning to filmmaking, his documentaries were selected for film festivals garnering awards from Korea and the Awards Forum for Independent Documentary (AIF). His work has been widely shown in the US at Harvard, Yale & Columbia, and in Europe at Berlin, Rome & Aix-en-Provence a.o.

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A Chronicle of My Cultural Revolution