USA,
1995, 53 min
Shown in 1996
CREDITS
- dir
-
Ronald Levaco
- prod
-
Ronald Levaco
- scr
-
Ronald Levaco
- cam
-
Antonio Luis Méndez
- editor
-
Jennifer Chinlund
- source
-
Trans Film and Video
- gga award
-
Certificate of Merit, Bay Area Documentary
-
COMMENTS
Shown with Spirits Rising. Ronald Levaco in person.
OTHER
Born in China of Russian parents, Bay Area filmmaker Ron Levaco had long been haunted by thoughts of retracing his childhood. Over a period of eight years he set himself to the task, going back to interview a fascinating family friend, Israel Epstein, a singular character who had come to China as a small child with his Russian parents. Epstein zealously embraced Mao Zedong’s communism as early as 1938 when he joined Mao in Yan’an. He went on to play a key role in the Maoist propaganda machine. In the tumult of the Cultural Revolution, the loyal Epstein was denounced, humiliated and hustled off to a dark jail cell. Freed years later and given an opportunity to emigrate to a good life in the U.S., Epstein decided nonetheless to stay in China. With old footage, interviews with Epstein in his Beijing home today and his own home movies, Levaco probes the mystery of this man’s decision in this thoughtful look at history, fate, politics and personality.
—Erica Marcus
FACTOID #176
Hordes of screaming teenagers were fascinated with the Rolling Stones, but so were influential imagemakers Jean-Luc Godard and Robert Frank. The SFIFF has screened three different films with the Rolling Stones as the main subject: Godard’s Sympathy for the Devil (SFIFF 1972), Frank’s Cocksucker Blues (SFIFF 1998) and the IMAX documentary At the Max (SFIFF 1991).
