1428 Tours the U.S.

1428 won last year's Best Documentary Award at the Venice International Film Festival. Director Du Haibin will attend the screening.

The Great Sichuan Earthquake took place at 14:28 on May 12, 2008. Days later, victims were reduced to salvaging destroyed pig farms in the mountains, recuperating scrap metals for the equivalent of pennies in profit, and pillaging homes. Some seven months after the earthquake, when villagers are preparing for the Lunar New Year, and promises made for all to live in houses in winter seem tough to keep, the director goes beyond the highly mediated official visits to shows us scenes not seen on official TV. New Year‘s Day starts as never-ending parade of tourists buying DVDs of the most horrific scenes, souvenir albums of corpses being pulled out of the ruins, and photo-taking in front of Beichuan, the town most severely hit, where tens of thousands of people perished in seconds.

Written and directed by DU Haibin.
Produced by Ben TSIANG. Cinematography by LI Ai’guo.

“This is independent documentary at its most sophisticated.” – Shelly Kraicer, Vancouver International Film Festival