When I was at the Pusan International Film Festival in Korea, I went to a hotel on the beach to meet a documentary filmmaker from Beijing. I was very impressed by his film, Who Killed Our Children.
Pan Jianlin was frank with his opinions and generous with his time. He chain smokes and makes self-deprecating jokes. He offered me a beer at 9:30 in the morning. When I met him he was wearing a Slipknot t-shirt. I asked him if he liked Slipknot; he replied, “Who’s Slipknot?”
I wanted to write about him and his film. Two versions of the story ran, one in US-China Today and the other on The China Beat.
I wrote the headline, also the title of this post. I hope I’m totally wrong on that count.
