Moving the Mountain (1994)

A documentary addressing the history and consequences of the protests that rocked Beijing in the Spring of 1989. The film was directed by Michael Apted ("Gorillas in the Mist," "Coal-Miner's Daughter," "Nell," etc.), produced by Trudie Styler (Xingu Films) and Edited by Susanne Rostock, with cinematography by Maryse Alberti. The film premiered in May 1994 at the Human Rights Film Festival in New York, where it was selected by Richard Gere as the featured film for the opening night of the festival. Its theatrical premiere followed, on 19 May, 1995, in New York. Drew Hopkins, Ph.D., served as Research Director and Production Manager for the film, developing all research materials, coordinated all aspects of production and post-production from inception through release, working closely with Apted and Styler in writing all treatments, promotional materials and budgets, and presenting the project to executive producers at the BBC, HBO, ABC, and Canal-Plus (Paris). Hopkins conducted all pre-production research, interviewing scores of officials, dissidents, and sinologists in China, Hong Kong, Paris, London, and the U.S. He also coordinated on-location production in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Washington, D.C., New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. This also entailed coordinating and conducting clandestine interviews with leading dissidents in Beijing, including student leader Wang Dan and Nobel laureates Wei Jingsheng and Liu Xiaobo. At the time (December 1993), Wang Dan and Wei Jingsheng had only been freed from prison weeks earlier. Wei Jingsheng's interview with Apted was among the last interviews he was to conduct prior to being placed under house arrest days later and then returned to prison.