‘I’ll worry when I finish’: Chinese director Lu Chuan on filming River Town by Peter Hessler
Filmmaker brushes aside censorship concerns as he prepares to film American author’s story of ‘people from different sides of the world, who educate, discover and explore each other’ in Fuling, Sichuan, in the 1990s
River Town, the memoir by New Yorker writer Peter Hessler of teaching in the remote Yangtze town of Fuling in the mid-1990s, is coming to the big screen with Chinese director Lu Chuan at the helm.
Lu, 45, is known for films such as the 2009 Nanking massacre movie City of Life and Death, the Chinese historical epic The Last Supper, and Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe, an action-adventure that made more than US$100 million at the Chinese box office. He recently wrapped production on Born in China, a Disney nature film slated for release in China later this year.
The River Town film project was announced in March. Jamie Gordon and Courtney Potts of Fugitive Films are producing, with Tristine Skyler adapting the book. Lu spoke on the sidelines of the China-US Motion Picture Summit on the outskirts of Beijing about River Town and Born in China.
How did you get involved with River Town?
First, I read it in Chinese. I love the book, and I like Peter Hessler a lot. The book is very interesting. One day, my agent asked me if I wanted to direct the film, and I said, “Why not? Let’s try.” It was not complicated. Two producers in New York, Jamie and Courtney, two ladies who bought the rights, they were trying to find the director for the movie, and I guess Peter Hessler gave them a list of desired directors. I guess I’m on that list. So they found me.