Originally published by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 01 Apr 2010

 HONG KONG — On Dec. 8, 1994, nearly 300 Chinese schoolchildren gathered in a remote western oil town to take part in a performance for school officials. But a stage light ignited a curtain, setting off a fire that engulfed the theatre. Few students made it out alive.

Sixteen years later, their parents are still grieving and questions remain. Why were the children told to wait for the officials to escape first? Why were so many of the exits locked? When will the children be issued death certificates?

Independent filmmaker Xu Xin records the lingering anguish and agony in a sombre six-hour, black-and-white documentary that made its world premiere at the Hong Kong International Film Festival on Sunday.

In “Karamay,” Xu has crafted a powerful movie by letting the material speak for itself. He doesn’t use a narrator or a musical score. An opening sequence showing student’s graves zooms in on the portraits of each of their tombstones. He lets the parents vent in lengthy monologues that bring out the depth of their sorrow.

The most touching interview is given by the only surviving student. Xu sensitively shows her scarred feet first, then plays her voice to a black screen before revealing her heavily disfigured face and hands.

The director also obtains rare footage of the fire itself and its aftermath – one particularly gruesome scene shows a hospital room piled with bodies. Xu got the video from parents – some of whom are police officials who had access to internal footage that has likely never been aired.

Karamay is located in the western Xinjiang region where tensions between Han Chinese and minority Uighurs are high. Clashes between Uighurs and police in the regional capital Urumqi in July led to nearly 200 deaths. But the 325 deaths from the 1994 fire, including students and teachers, cut across ethnic lines: the victims were Han, Uighur and Kazakh.

China is sensitive about coverage of major disasters. In February, a Chinese activist received a five-year jail sentence for trying to determine whether shoddy construction played a role in the destruction that took place during the massive earthquake in southwestern Sichuan province in 2008.

In the case of the Karamay fire, thirteen local officials were sentenced to jail terms of up to seven years for negligence and the parents were paid compensation, but many still think the government hasn’t done enough.

So Xu had to proceed carefully. He showed up unannounced at the grave where the victims are buried on the 13th anniversary of the fire with a small digital camera and introduced himself to parents paying their respects to their children. From his initial contacts, he managed to track down more than 60 parents.

The director successfully avoided detection of Chinese authorities, but he is under no illusion that his documentary will ever screen in China.

“It’s definitely impossible for it to be distributed in China. At least it’s impossible right now,” Xu told The Associated Press in an interview in Hong Kong on Monday.

For now, the Hong Kong screening will be the only one on Chinese soil. This former British colony enjoys freedom of speech as part of its semiautonomous status under Chinese rule. But Xu still looks forward to the day when he can get his story out to more of his countrymen.

Asked by a member of the audience after the world premiere whether he wanted Chinese President Hu Jintao to see his documentary, Xu said he answered, “Of course I do.”

“I hope the entire central leadership will watch this movie. It will inform high officials that such a group of parents exist and their current situation. It’s a way of understanding the lives of regular people,” he told the AP.

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