SFIFF: They Chose China

Before the screening of the documentary, They Chose China, Director Shuibo Wang stood in front of the audience and declared that San Francisco was his favorite city in North America. That already predisposed the largely gray-haired audience to feel kindly towards the director but then he further ingratiated himself by saying, "I have never experienced a festival like this. It is very very warm. This is a very sweet experience." Wang, whose previous documentary Sunrise Over Tiananmen Square was nominated for an Oscar, is familiar with the festival circuit where lesser known players are shuttled from hotel room to screenings without ever making contact with festival organizers. He declared that SFIFF festival organizers made him feel like family. The audience was rooting for him even more after that.

They Chose China is the relatively forgotten story of a handful of American soldiers who were prisoners of war in Chinese camps during the Korean War. At the end of the conflict they chose to stay in China rather than repatriate back to McCarthy's America. The director was inspired to pursue the story because of an encounter he had with one of these foreigners in a rural corner of China as a young boy.

Director Wang's odyssey to get this film financed is probably not an uncommon story for filmmakers. He pursued partnerships with PBS, the CBC, HBO, The History Channel among others sometimes receiving interest but ultimately having offers withdrawn because the subject matter was considered too controversial. He thought he had received financing at one point in 1997 when two of the three men he focuses on in the film were still alive but that offer was withdrawn and he had to depend on archival footage to tell their story.

They Chose China is proceeded by a short film on the contemporary artist Thornton Dial. Both movies play today and again on May 3.

SFist MiHi Ahn, contributing