All Under Heaven

Screen
03/21 16:40 1 hall

All Under Heaven is a production of the Long Bow Group, and co-directed by Carma Hinton and Richard Gordon. Shot over a period of one year during 1982 and 1983, and completed in 1986, All Under Heaven is part of a trilogy, entitled One village in China , which explores complex issues in the political, economic and social transformation of rural China . The other two films in the series are Small Happiness and To Taste a Hundred Herbs . The series have been shown in film festivals and on television world w ide during the 1980s and have won more than 20 international awards.

One Village in China was filmed in Zhangzhuang, a village located near Changzhi city, in Shanxi Province . Carma Hinton's father, William Hinton, first visited the village when he went to China in 1947 as an officer of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. He had stayed in the village for six months in 1948 to observe land reform. Later he published a book entitled Fanshen , based on the derailed notes he took. Carma Hinton and Richard Gordon visited the village many times during the 1970s and 1980s. All Under Heaven traces the history of the village prior to the rural reforms through interviews with the villagers. It also follows the complicated process of the village's transformation from collective farming to the family responsibility system, presenting the many conflicting views expressed by the villagers.

Carma Hinton was born in Beijing in 1949 and spent her first twenty one years in China . Chinese is her first language and culture. She received her bachelor's degree in Oriental Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and Ph.D. in Chinese art history from Harvard University . In addition to film production, she has taught Chinese language, culture, and film at many colleges and universities, including Swarthmore, Wellesley, and MIT.

Carma Hinton and her husband Richard Gordon has collaborated in producing films about China for twenty five y ears. Their other works include Abode of Illusion , about the famous artist Zhang Daqian, Stilt Dancer , First Moon , Guonian (Passage to a New Year), and Guomen (Wedding), about folk culture.