A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Written by:
Michael McMann
Ward Serrill
Directed by:
Ward Serrill
Release Date:
October 27, 2023
Original Title:
Dancing with the Dead: Red Pine and the Art of Translation
Genres:
Documentary
Production Companies:
Woody Creek Pictures
Ratings / Certifications:
US: NR
Runtime: 84
The film follows Bill’s adventures as a child of a bank robber, raised in a gilded household, who turned his back on American devotion to materialism and went off to live in monasteries and mountains in Taiwan. He pursued a fascination with Buddhism and poetry and traveled to remote regions of China to rediscover an ancient tradition of mountain hermits vital to Chinese culture.
Follows Bill Porter (Red Pine) through the art of Chinese translation and his quest to find hermits in the Zhongnan Mountains that reignited a movement in modern China to seek enlightenment through poetry and mountain solitude.
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