Synopsis

A DREAM OF THE RED TERROR is a documentary short that follows the interwoven emotional journey of two unrelated Chinese women, victimized by the systematic persecution against spirituality. Their oral stories take place in the eye of Communist China’s ongoing crackdown on their spiritual belief, a traditional Chinese body-and-mind practice with a moral philosophy. Amidst nationwide persecution against spirituality, ​Liang​​ ​Hua was placed by undercover cops into a labor camp in Szechuan, where she spent 10 years being tortured. ​Zixi Chen had to flee when she witnessed her mother's abduction by police and embarked on a life “in transit”. The film is a visual essay that moves through unrecorded past to interrogate the collective present day inertia and trauma of the Chinese people, from victims to perpetrators to onlookers, who unwillingly turn a blind eye to violence undertaken within institutional and familial spaces. A DREAM OF THE RED TERROR is a sonic and visual collage that interweaves the two women’s narratives of trauma while employing charged, vibrantly paced step printing techniques that illustrate entrapment on both physical and mental levels.