For over a year now editor, blogger, musician and Beijing resident Charles Custer has been working on a distinctly important documentary, Living with Dead Hearts, that focuses on the plight of kidnapped children in China – an issue that is especially relevant given the recent news of the adopted Hubei orphans who were allegedly taken from their birth parents against their will.

Marilyn Mai at thebeijinger.com recently interviewed Custer and Imagethief (a.k.a. Will Moss) wrote a heartfelt essay promoting the documentary’s upcoming release (at the time of writing production was ongoing with a release date TBD). A quick excerpt from Imagethief’s essay:

But I’ve also become a crier. As near as I can figure there is some kind of hormonal recalibration that goes on in fathers, probably to help ensure you empathize with your child in order to reduce the chances of, say, clubbing him to death with an antelope thigh bone when he does any of the zillions of things that really annoy you. But a side effect of that sensible evolutionary step is this emotional trigger that makes me choke up at completely inappropriate times.

I’m serious. I mean, forget all the Old Yeller bullshit. We all cried then. I get damp cheeks for nothing these days. Street musicians, public service announcements, that moment in Star Wars when Threepio abandons R2D2 in the desert, bus shelter advertisements, whatever. Any cheap emotional trick and I’ve suddenly, you know, got something in my eye. I misted up watching Transformers 3 because I thought the compositing was good.

Lost Laowai founder and blogger Ryan McLaughlin also has an interview with Charles (who recently wrote an article relating to this subject for Foreign Policy), in which he relates some of the challenges the crew has faced in production and how readers might be able to help:

The easiest is just to help us promote it by sharing it with your friends, family, and followers online. Maybe you can’t afford to donate right now, but some of them can. Beyond that, of course, there are a million other ways to help too. Last time we raised money, the publicity also led a bunch of people to get in touch with us and offer their help with everything from research and translation to photography.

It was also through a connection from the last round of fundraising that we got to know the folks at the Xinxing Aid center, who we’re donating 20% of the money we raise to this time around. As of the time of this interview, we have already gotten an offer from one person to help us out with the production any way he can, and a number of other people have offered help with promoting the film or have offered their expertise as interview subjects; we’ve already found two new experts to interview.

Read the rest of the interview here.

Despite the hype in certain circles in the West surrounding the perceived merits of the highly competitive education systems found in China and other parts of Asia, some concerned parties in America have begun to question the consequences of high-pressure schooling in general.

Lauded as the one of the most popular documentaries in America in the past few years, " Race to Nowhere, directed by ex-Wall Street lawyer and mother-of-three Vicki Abeles and film editor and director Jessica Congdon, examines this issue and comes to the interesting, albeit controversial, conclusion that "schools and parental pressure" are adversely affecting students – in other words, placing such a heavy emphasis on scholastic and academic achievement is crushing our kids.

Since its release, the documentary has been screened at theaters, schools and community centers across the US and from 3-5pm on Saturday, October 15 BCIS (Beijing City International School) will be screening the film for free followed by a Q&A section with Vicki Abeles herself via Skype.

If you’re interested in attending, contact Yisha Niu in the BCIS Marketing Department at yisha.niu@bcis.cn or 8771 7171 ext 5006 by October 14th to RSVP.

For more information, click here.

More information:

Race to Nowhere BCIS screening information here and here.
IMDB: Race to Nowhere credits
Jay Matthews on The Washington Post: Why ‘Race to Nowhere’ Documentary is Wrong
Also on The Washington Post: ‘Race to Nowhere’ film highlights stress students face in high-pressure academics
John Merrow on the Huffington Post: ‘Race to Nowhere:’ It’s no ‘Waiting for ‘Superman’, ‘ but it’s Honest
Connected Principals: Race to Nowhere: One Principal’s Response
Mother Jones: America’s "Race to Nowhere"