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Deadly China earthquake in focus at SKorea film fest

Time is GMT + 8 hours
Posted: 6-Oct-2008 06:40 hrs

Chinese film-maker Pan Jianlin speaks during an interview on the sidelines of 13th Pusan International Film Festival in Busan. Pan struggles to find the right words to describe what he saw at the Muyu Middle School, six days after the earthquake that devastated Sichuan province.

Chinese film-maker Pan Jianlin struggles to find the right words to describe what he saw at the Muyu Middle School, six days after the earthquake that devastated Sichuan province.

Nearly 300 children died in the school's dormitory, which collapsed as they were taking their afternoon naps. They were among the tens of thousands killed in the massive May 12 tremor.

"The entire dormitory was still in a pile," Pan told AFP in an interview. "There was just nothing left but rubble. Nothing can prepare you for that scene."

Pan's gripping documentary about the quake, "Who Killed Our Children", makes its world premiere at the 13th Pusan International Film Festival on Sunday.

The film, the first independent documentary about the disaster, takes an unflinching look at the devastation caused by the 8.0-magnitude quake -- and the effect it has had on those who survived.

The quake devastated wide areas of the southwestern Chinese province and left more than 87,000 people dead or missing -- many of them children who were buried in schools which parents say were built with shoddy materials.

Pan tells the story of the school, located in Qingchuan county, from both sides -- grief-stricken parents point their fingers at school officials who, along with local officials, say the quake was simply too powerful.

"The quality of these buildings was terrible," the director said. "This is a big problem in China. Corruption is also a problem. It is shameful. And the parents are looking for answers. They were in such deep sorrow."

The official death toll from the school was 286 children, but some parents -- who say the doors to the dormitory were locked when the quake struck -- claim the figure was closer to 600.

Most of the bodies, they say, were found piled on top of each other near the exits, some hands still gripping door handles.

Pan, who was in Beijing at the time of the quake, says he immediately packed his camera and rushed to Sichuan.

"I wanted to see this, and for people to see this -- to see what was actually going on," he said.

Making the film was not easy, Pan says. While survivors were willing to face the camera in the immediate aftermath of the quake, probably because they were still in shock, authorities were not so keen for the footage to be aired.

Three weeks after the quake, when the entire region had been sealed off to the media, officials paid Pan a visit in Beijing and confiscated his tapes. But he explains: "I had made copies by then."

The film begins with images of what was once the school and dormitory, reduced to an enormous heap of rubble. Shoes and toys litter the scene. A little girl's smile lights up the pages of a photo album.

But then Pan's camera moves to the hundreds of graves, scattered in the brush on a nearby hillside, with only wooden doors or bedcovers to mark them.

At one stage, parents produce a report from the school they claim they found in the debris -- dated 2006 -- that says the dormitory, a 40-year-old converted hospital, was unsafe.

"Local officials seem not to know how to face these problems," says Pan. "They have no experience and they want to keep their jobs too. They just want to move things on and not face up to the problems."

In one emotional scene, students are shown undergoing "psychological" treatment in a makeshift tent classroom built by the Chinese army.

As they sing patriotic songs, enraged parents storm into the tent and ask why their kids are being made to perform for the benefit of state-sponsored media.

Pan -- whose previous work includes the award-winning documentary "The Bride" (2002) and feature films "Going Home" (2007) and "Endless Night" (2007) -- said he went to Sichuan to find the truth, but found that task difficult in the face of so much tragedy.

"It was impossible to confirm what was true and what was not true," said Pan. "So maybe everybody had some things in their stories that were true and some things that were not true. It is impossible to tell."

"There was such frustration -- no one knew what to do. There is not much they can do but move on."

After screenings in Busan, Pan says he hopes to take his film to other international festivals -- and insists he is unconcerned about possible backlash at home.

"I just hope as many people as possible can see this film," he said. "Because we don't want these things to be forgotten." — AFP