Edward M. Gunn

The Revolution They Remember, a full-length documentary film in two parts, explores how the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) was experienced by ordinary people and how it is remembered today based on two video oral history projects. Initiated in 2015 by the East Asian Library of the University of Pittsburgh Library System, the CR/10 Project recorded, preserved, and published video interviews with Chinese citizens sharing their memories and impressions of China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. At Dartmouth College Library, the Down to the Countryside Movement Project includes interviews with former “Rusticated Youth,” young people who were relocated to China’s rural areas during the Cultural Revolution.

“The Revolution They Remember” compiles selected excerpts from interviews of Chinese who recall their experiences of the Cultural Revolution era, 1966-1976, drawing on more than 120 interviews in the oral history projects of the University of Pittsburgh Library and the Dartmouth College Library. The film offers rich visual material, arranging the interviews according to the historical chronology of events, with attention to age, gender, geographic breadth, and social groups. It concludes with reflections of participants and scholars on the era and its legacies today.