Award-winning documentary to be screened Feb. 7

Skidmore will host a screening of the award-winning documentary Bringing King to China at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 7, in Gannett Auditorium of Palamountain Hall. Admission is free and open to the public.

Film director Kevin McKiernan will attend the screening and participate in a question and answer session. Hedi Joauad, professor of French, will introduce the program.

Bringing King to Chinais the bittersweet story of Caitrin  McKiernan, a young American teacher in Beijing, whose failed protests against the Iraq war inspire her to produce a play in China about Martin Luther King, Jr.

Early in the film she mistakenly learns that her father (the filmmaker) has beenkilled by a suicide bomber in Iraq. Vowing to show the world "the positive face of America," the protagonist sets out to raise $200,000, hires the most prestigious theater troupe in China, and stages a play in Chinese with African American gospel singers. But her efforts to translate Dr. King's vision of global peace to a Chinese audience turn rocky in the face of cultural obstacles and soured relationships.

Caitrin succeeds in producing a popular play, but she is forced to redefine hersuccess. She finally repairs a strained friendship with her beloved Beijing assistant, while confronting her father with the charge he is suffering from post-traumatic stressfrom his coverage of the war in Iraq.

Bringing King to Chinais a daughter-father story that plays out against a bridgeC itr n tries to build between the U.S. and China. As it turns out, her bridge is full of unexpected "potholes," as learns that language proficiency alone does not guaranteethat two cultures will understand each other. In the journey to find independence, C itr n comes to realize that genuine cross-cultural dialogue entails a gritty struggle to find common ground.

Says the director, McKiernan, "This is a character-driven film about a good will ambassador who unwittingly generates conflict ("I have a lot to learn--I'm a white girl in China trying to understand a black man who died 12 years before I was born"). On the surface, it is a drama about diversity and cross-cultural dialogue: a self-assured foreigner in Beijing produces a play that extols civil disobedience as a means of social change--under the scrutiny of the Chinese Ministry of Culture. As such, the film encourages western audiences to view Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the U.S. civil rights struggle from the perspective of another culture.

The heart of this story, however, is the protagonist's self-doubt: her struggle to deal with the threat of losing her father, her decision to abandon journalism and her questioning of whether Dr. King's 1960s vision of global peace still has relevance in a post-9/11 world.

The film won the best documentary award at the Tulsa International Film Festival and the Ventura Film Festival, and was chosen an official selection for 10 film festivals in 2011.

Skidmore's Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures is sponsoring the program with support from the departments of English, American Studies, and Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work, as well as the Office of Student Diversity Programs.