June 2 - June 3

The Train / The Two Faces of China

For several months, Donovan Wylie traveled across Russia with a group of Orthodox priests who were hoping to solidify the faith of believers that might have lapsed during communism, or might have succumbed to Protestant evangelical missionaries. Wylie encounters some extraordinary personalities both on and off the train while creating a portrait of a country and a culture moving in several different directions simultaneously.

Photographer René Burri arrived in China in the mid-60s to make a film about the struggle between the culture's traditional values and the demands of the Marxist state. By the end of his shoot, the Cultural Revolution was in full sway, answering the question of tradition vs. modernity with an often bloody overhaul of a society as radical as the world had ever seen. A true document of an extraordinary - and extraordinarily tense - moment in modern Chinese history.

The Train
Donovan Wylie, UK, 2001; 50m

The Two Faces of China
René Burri, France, 1968; 53m