Alias Will James

Comment un Québécois pure laine a-t-il pu devenir un romancier américain célèbre et le cow-boy le plus authentique de Hollywood? En fabulant! Alias Will James raconte l'histoire invraisemblable d'Ernest Dufault qui, avec la complicité tacite de sa famille, a réussi à séduire (et tromper) pendant trente ans la royauté européenne et la société américaine. Voleur de chevaux, vagabond, artiste et écrivain, Will James est encore aujourd'hui, dans le Far West américain, un personnage mythique.

Part documentary, part drama, this film presents the life and work of Jack Kerouac, an American writer with Québec roots who became one of the most important spokesmen for his generation. Intercut with archival footage, photographs, interviews and a careful reconstruction of the period, this film takes apart the heroic myth and even returns to the childhood of the author whose life and work contributed greatly to the cultural, sexual and social revolution of the 1960s.

It is January 1954. The Korean War is over. Captured UN soldiers held in POW camps are free to return home. Those who refuse repatriation to their homeland are transferred to a neutral zone and given 90 days to reconsider their decision. Among them are 21 American soldiers who decide defiantly to stay in China. Back in the United States, McCarthyism is at its height. Many Americans believe these young men have been brainwashed by Chinese communists through a new form of thought control. But what really happened? Featuring never-before-seen footage from the Chinese camps as well as interviews with former POWs and their families, They Chose China tells the fascinating stories of these forgotten American dissidents. With the Cold War fading into memory, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Shuibo Wang (Sunrise Over Tiananmen Square) aims his camera on this astonishing story. In They Chose China, we meet and begin to understand a group of courageous men who fought for and then cut ties with the USA.