Country: United States of America
Language: English
Year: 2007
Running Time: 89 min
A powerful, emotional and relevant reminder of the heartbreaking toll war takes on the innocent, Nanking tells the story of the Japanese invasion of Nanking, China, in the early days of World War II. As part of a campaign to conquer all of China, the Japanese subjected Nanking – which was then China’s capital – to months of aerial bombardment, and when the city fell, the Japanese army unleashed murder and rape on a horrifying scale. In the midst of the rampage, a small group of Westerners banded together to establish a Safety Zone where over 200,000 Chinese found refuge. Unarmed, these missionaries, university professors, doctors and businessmen – including a Nazi named John Rabe – bored witness to the events, while risking their own lives to protect civilians from slaughter.
The story is told through deeply moving interviews with Chinese survivors, chilling archival footage and photos of the events, and testimonies of former Japanese soldiers. At the heart of Nanking is a filmed stage reading of the Westerners’ letters and diaries, featuring Woody Harrelson, Mariel Hemingway and Jurgen Prochnow. Through its interweave of archival images, testimonies of survivors, and readings of first hand accounts, the film puts the viewer on the streets of Nanking and brings the forgotten past to startling life.
Nanking is a testament to the courage and conviction of individuals who were determined to act in the face of evil and a powerful tribute to the resilience of the Chinese people – a gripping account of light in the darkest of times.
|
Director
|
Bill Guttentag
|
|
Director
|
Dan Sturman
|
|
Screenplay
|
Bill Guttentag
|
|
Screenplay
|
Dan Sturman
|
|
Screenplay
|
Elisabeth Bentley
|
|
Story
|
Bill Guttentag
|
|
Story
|
Dan Sturman
|
|
Producer
|
Ted Leonsis
|
|
Producer
|
Bill Guttentag
|
|
Producer
|
Michael Jacobs
|
|
Co- Producer
|
Violet Du Feng
|
|
Director of Photography
|
Buddy Squires
|
|
Editor
|
Hibah Frisina
|
|
Editor
|
Charlton McMillan
|
|
Editor
|
Michael Schweitzer
|
|
Music by
|
Philip Marshall
|
|
Songs performed by
|
The Kronos Quartet
|
|
Line Producer
|
Dylan Nelson
|
|
Line Producer
|
Katie Strand
|
|
Line Producer
|
Karen Lin
|
|
Associate Producer
|
Jo ann Jacobs
|
|
Associate Producer
|
Izumi Tanaka
|
|
Associate Producer
|
Wakai Makiko
|
|
Hugo Armstrong
|
as Rev. John Magee
|
|
Rosalind Chao
|
as Chang Yu Zheng
|
|
Stephen Dorff
|
as Lewis Smythe
|
|
John Getz
|
as George Fitch
|
|
Woody Harrelson
|
as Bob Wilson
|
Crystal Heart Award - Heartland Film Festival; Humanitarian Award - Hong Kong Film Festival; Emmy - News and Documentary Emmy Awards; Documentary Film Editing Award - Sundance Film Festival
In 2003 Bill Guttentag won an Oscar for the documentary Twin Towers (Universal). It was his second Academy Award; the first was in 1989 for You Don't Have to Die, a film he made for HBO. He has also received three additional Oscar nominations, as well as two Emmy Awards.
His films have been selected three times for the Sundance Film Festival and have played and won awards at numerous American and international film festivals. Guttentag's films have received a number of special screenings, including one at the White House.
Bill Guttentag created and executive produced the NBC series “Crime & Punishment,” which ran for three seasons, ending in 2004. The series was part of the Law & Order family of shows, and was created with Dick Wolf, who was also an executive producer. Bill Guttentag has made documentary films for HBO, ABC, CBS and others. His HBO films include the Academy Award-nominated Crack USA, and Memphis PD: War on the Streets, for which he received the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award.
In 1998 Guttentag directed Assassinated: The Last Days of Kennedy and King (executive produced by Oliver Stone) on the final year in the lives of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. He wrote, produced and directed The “Cocaine War,” an ABC News/Peter Jennings Reporting special which involved months of accompanying DEA agents as they fought the drug war in South America. He also made 5 American Handguns - 5 American Kids, an Emmy-nominated HBO special on children and handguns. The film was honored by Jim and Sara Brady and The Brady Center to Prevent Handgun Violence.
Bill Guttentag is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the American Film Institute. In 1998-99 he was a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University. Since 2001 he has been teaching a class on the film and television business at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford.
2009 JONAH
2007 LIVE!
2007 NANKING (co-dir)
2003 TWIN TOWERS (co-dir, short)
1998 ASSASSINATED: THE LAST DAYS OF KENNEDY AND KING (co-dir)
1996 MEMPHIS PD: WAR ON THE STREETS (co-dir)
1994 BLUES HIGHWAY
1991 DEATH ON THE JOB (co-dir)
1989 CRACK USA: COUNTRY UNDER SIEGE (co-dir)
Nanking is Dan Sturman's directorial debut. Previously, Sturman produced Twin Towers, an Academy Award-winning documentary about two brothers -- one a firefighter, the other a policeman -- who died in the World Trade Center collapse. The film screened at the White House, at Sundance in 2003, and at numerous other festivals.
Between 2001 and 2003, Sturman produced three seasons of "Crime & Punishment," the award-winning NBC documentary series created by Dick Wolf and Bill Guttentag. The series was part of the "Law & Order" family of shows. Sturman has reported and produced for ABC News, CBS News, and the BBC while based in Los Angeles; for Reuters and NBC News while based in London; and for ABC News "20/20" in New York.
In 1992, Sturman was the associate producer of another Academy Award-winning documentary, A Time for Justice. The film, produced by Charles Guggenheim, commemorates the lives of the men, women, and children who were killed during the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950's and 60's.
Dan Sturman is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University.