Round Eyes in the Middle Kingdom

Filmmaker Ronald Levaco was born from Russian parents in China in 1940. In 1950, shortly after the communist take-over, the family emigrated to the United States. Round Eyes in the Middle Kingdom is the result of Levaco's curiosity for the experiences of Eastern Europeans who decided not to flee from Mao's regime in the late forties. Chief character in the film is the Polish Jew Israel Epstein, who as a two-year-old boy emigrated from Poland to China with his parents. When Epstein's parents left for the United States in 1938 for fear of the communists, Epstein chose a future in China. He married a Chinese wife, got two children and is currently still living in China. In the forties Epstein joined the communists and remained loyal to them until today. His communist ideals even survived his five-year confinement during the Cultural Revolution, when he, like many others, was accused of weakness and treason by the Red Guards. Round Eyes in the Middle Kingdom portrays Epstein's life and ideas not only by means of interviews and archive footage, but also deals with the position of the filmmaker, who regards Epstein's life with a mixture of affection, admiration and incomprehension. Levaco: "He dared to take the path that even many round-eyes (Chinese nickname for Westerners) came to realise was right for China". (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)