ROUND EYES IN THE MIDDLE KINGDOM United States

This film tells the story of the Caucasian
residents of China from the l 930’s to the
present. It follows a family ?f Westerne?s
who fled China as the revolution spread in
1949, b,μt focuses on one man who
stayed, a Russian Jew who joined Mao’s
revolution. Why Israel Epstein joined the
communist revolution that forced most foreigners
to flee; why he remain? in Chin. a
after five years of solitary confinement 1n
the ’70’s; and what his life is like today as
China’s leading foreign journalist are central
questions this film answers. As a personal
documentary, the film is narrated by
a filmmaker who was born in China but
taken to America at ten, and who attempts
to reconcile his own comfortable, colonial
childhood with the famines and suffering
that led to the Chinese revolution. –
Production notes