Coming to NYC’s Stranger Than Fiction series tomorrow, Tuesday, April 4: THE ROAD TO FAME
Hao Wu’s crosscultural coming of age of China’s one-child generation made its debut at Sheffield last year. It went on to screen at DOC NYC, CNEX Doc, Hawaii, DMZ Doc, and St Louis, among other events.
Wu uses the first collaboration between China and Broadway to explore the experiences and expectations of the children born of the implementation of the one-child policy, introduced in 1979 to curb overpopulation concerns. Profiling would-be performers from across socioeconomic strata, but all under extreme pressure from and beholden to their parents, the film’s surface story – the staging of FAME at Beijing’s Central Academy of Drama under the direction of Broadway professionals – serves as an apt mirror for the lofty dreams – and practical limits – of success. At the same time, the interactions between the students and their American musical theatre mentors reveal an intriguing instance of crosscultural adaptation and collaboration, with one particular scene promising select students an unlikely shortcut to Broadway success proving to be especially memorable.
what (not) to doc 