Posted: October 6

Chinese TV crew in Rome

(Rome) The Chinese production crew leaves Rome today to return to Nanjing, China, taking with them hours of great video footage for a four-part documentary on the life and times of Paul Xu Guangqi, the statesman who became a friend of Father Matteo Ricci, a Catholic and one of the pillars of the Church in China. Father Jerry Martinson who has been serving as the executive producer of the shoot left yesterday, tired but happy that all the arrangements finally fell into place. And the weather cooperated as well, giving the visitors beautiful Italian light to enfold the scenic places they visited.

The documentary series is a co-production between the Jesuits' Kuangchi Program Service in Taiwan and Jiangsu Broadcasting Corporation (JBC) in Nanjing. JBC is one of the largest stations in the country, so the show should be broadcast throughout China. If post-production goes well the show is slated to start airing on Dec. 31. A crew of six came to Italy for two weeks of production. Besides Martinson, the group included Professor Li Tiangang, an expert on Xu Guangqi who teaches religious studies at a prestigious university in Shanghai. The professor happily burrowed into the Jesuit archives in Rome, delighting in seeing original works first hand that he has studied for years. Meanwhile the cameramen and producers from JBC got interviews and background footage in Rome and Macerata, the city where Ricci was born in 1552.

I met the crew in our garden at the Curia; they were up on one of the high lookout points shooting down into St. Peter's Square. What is a Chinese TV crew like? The answer is: just like any other one. My favorite was the cameraman, Wang Fujun. I had no difficulty understanding him even though I don't speak Chinese. He never talks, but he is always looking for a good shot. Jerry told me that as soon as that entered the garden Wang immediately climbed to the platform around the Sacred Heart statue, the highest point in the garden. Wang is a tall, lanky man who hunches over to look through his viewfinder. He has a great eye, according to Jerry. Mr. Jiang Wenbo heads the JBC documentary department. I liked him because he took all of my suggesions about places to film in Rome. Since I have been traipsing around the city for five years with sketchpad and camera, I have a unique perspective on the city, which the visitors appreciated. Of course I liked them.

Last Sunday they taped an interview with Julio Andreotti, the retired prime minister of Italy. Andreotti wrote a book about Ricci that some credit with spurring a contemporary interest in the Italian missionary. Another interviewee was Dr. Felipo Mignini, the professor from Macerata who has put together several major exhibitions. Between interviews and shots of the city, the producers will have lots of material to work with. They already began shooting some historical dramatizations in China using historically accurate places and costumes. Xu Guangqi is important in Chinese history for introducing a green revolution in the early seventeenth century that increased food production and halted starvation, allowing the population to increase six-fold in a little more than a century. Of course, he is important to Jesuit history because he is the one who really opened the door to China to the Jesuits and positioned Matteo Ricci and Adam Schall so that their scientific knowledge gained them access to the imperial court. Unlike his Jesuit friend, however, Xu Guangqi is not well known. Hopefully this documentary will change that.