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Wigwam (Shining Ray) The Bridge Breakers Rain We Are Building Philips Radio Creosote Komsomol (Song of Heroes) New Earth Borinage The Spanish Earth The 400 Million Power and the Land Indonesia Calling The First Years Song of the Rivers The Seine Meets Paris Before Spring Italy Is Not a Poor Country Travel Notebook A Valparaiso The Mistral Pour le Mistral Far from Vietnam The 17th Parallel How Yukong Moved the Mountains A Tale of the Wind Magnitogorsk, Forging the New Man		The 400 Million 1939 / USA / B&W / 53 min / 35mm Director, Script: Joris Ivens Camera: John Ferno, Robert Capa Editor: Helen van Dongen Music: Hanns Eisler Commentary: Frederic March (written by: Dudley Nichols) Production company: History Today, Inc. Japanese aggression against China in 1937 forced the Chinese communists to join Chiang Kaishek's Kuomintang to take up arms against their common enemy. In 1938 Ivens and John Ferno went to China, joined there later by Robert Capa, to film the battle of Taierzhwang, one of the few battles won by the Chinese. The film shows all aspects of war: the fear and distress, the human misery and the courage, the preparations, the battle itself, the refugees, the casualties and victims, and the land itself as it is laid barren. Although filming for the Chinese, Ivens and his crew were subjected to heavy-handed censorship by the Kuomintang who intended to prevent the communists from being given too much prominence. Nonetheless, Ivens succeeded in contacting the communists, supplying them with a camera and some film so they could record their own version of events. This camera has been exhibited in the Museum of the Revolution in Beijing. A TOPICS A Bird's Eye View of a Documentary Career HELEN VAN DONGEN Kees Bakker beforenext COPYRIGHT:Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival Organizing Committee