Eric A. Hyer, an Asian specialist and a political science professor at Brigham Young University, will be screening “China's Hidden Battlefield” Wednesday, May 1, at noon in the Special Collections classroom, room 1131 in the Harold B. Lee Library. Admission is free.
The hour-long documentary focuses on an event in the life of An Wei, a high-ranking Communist Party official who returns to his place of birth to spearhead a school building project.
In his remote village, two clans fight bitterly for seven years about whether or not they will build a large primary school meant to honor An Wei’s deceased daughter. Plagued by the memory of his daughter, who was killed in a tragic auto accident in the U.S., he must decide not only what is right for himself but for the village, and for the rest of China, in a struggle that cuts to the core of China’s most salient developmental, political and cultural issues.
A friend of many years with Hyer, An Wei was instrumental in bringing the Helen Foster Snow collection to BYU Special Collections and has worked with BYU faculty and students to organize numerous programs in China. In 2000, he was involved in the production of the documentary film “Helen Foster Snow: Witness to Revolution,” which Hyer co-produced with Dodge Billingsley of Combat Films & Research.
For more information, contact Hyer at eric_hyer@byu.edu.
Writer: Lee Simons
