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Rightist Li Sheng Zhao’s Hunger Report

Xie Yihui

Release year: 2014

Run time: 80 mins

Film type: Documentary

Synopsis

Li Sheng Zhao was born in a landlord family in Sichuan. He used to be a soldier, and then became a student in the Department of Economics at Sichuan University in the spring of 1961. After he became a rightist, Mr. Li was escorted to his hometown of Long Chang County in Sichuan province. He observed that people were dying with hunger in his way to hometown. With his investigative experience in army, Mr. Li was called for conscience and justice, and started a private investigation. He braved the risk of death to write this hunger report to the central party committee leaders, requesting them to take measures to save the country. Although he received a reply from Ma Yin Chu, the former president of Peking University, and Deng Zi Hui, the former vice premier of the State Council, this did not prevent him from becoming a counter-revolutionary and getting into jail for 18 years. This film presents the rightist Li Sheng Zhao's courage to tell the truth, his strength and insistence, and his rational analysis of the human-made disaster in fifty years ago.

 

Director biography

Yihui Xie, real name Linrong Xie, was born in 1967 in Chengdu, Sichuan. In 2009, she worked with Tan Zuoren on a survey of students who died in the earthquake and video interviewed their parents. 2012, she completed the documentary "The Hunger Report of Rightist Li Shengzhao". In 2013, she completed the documentary film "Juvenile Laborers Confined in Dabao". Most of the subjects she has filmed are related to contemporary Chinese history, especially Sichuan contemporary history. Currently, there are other documentaries on historical topics in the editing process.