This is not an anti-Japanese film, it is anti-war. So says American director Bill Guttentag when talking about Nanking, a film that shines a spotlight on one of the biggest atrocities of World War II.

It was a massacre of an estimated 300,000 Chiense civilians and soldiers and the rape of tens of thousands of women by the Japanese army when they invaded China's then-capital Nanking (known today as Nanjing) in 1937.

The film was the brainchild of Ted Leonsis, vice chairman of AOL. Leonsis was cruising the Caribbean on his yacht several years ago when he noticed an obituary for Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking, a best-seller on the Nanjing Masscre, on a yellowing newspaper. His preoccupation on the story grew when he turned to the book.

In summer 2005, he sent Guttentag a copy of the book and invited him to direct a film based on the story.

Guttentag opened the book and was confronted with the phrase: Forgotten Holocaust.

"I think the word forgotten and holocaust should not be together," he said.

Like Schindler's List and Hotel Rwanda, the 89-minute documentary documents the horror through the stories of a group of brave souls who tried to help. The drama is woven together by journals and letters of about 20 Westerners who chose to stay behind in the city to protect the poor and displaced who could not flee in time.

The missionaries, businessmen and professors established a neutral safety zone within the city to protect the civilians. One of these Westerners, John Rabe, even attempted to use his Nazi Party influence to stop the carnage.

The war's horror is brought to life by a combination of vintage footage, interviews with survivors and eyewitnesses, and a staged reading of excerpts from the letters and diaries by actors including Woody Harrelson, Mariel Heminway, Rosalind Chao and Jurgen Prochnow.

Guttentag said that highlighting these foreigners' heroism makes the story more accessible to Westerners, who know very little about the massacre.

Guttentag and the other director Dan Sturman, together with their production team, also went to China to look for the survivors and witnesses, and collected previous interviews, old newspapers, letters and archives.

They talked to China's historians, documentarians and scholars to find out where to source the best photographs and footage.

In December 2005, co-producer Violet Du Feng met more than 30 survivors in Nanjing, while Leonsis, Guttentag and Sturman and the rest of the production team spent three weeks interviewing 22 survivors living in Nanjing and nearby Suzhou and Shanghai.

They found survivors who witnessed family members being killed, women who had been raped, and let one interviewee tell his incredibly powerful story for five minutes without interruption, which is really rare in documentaries.

When they traveled to Japan to continue the filming, a number of Japanese in the crew quit, saying it was too dangerous a job and would bring shame to their families. It was something Guttentag had never encountered before in his career.

"There are people who still claim the incident never happened," he said. "But we have forensic evidence, photographic evidence and film evidence, and there's eyewitness testimony. What else do you need?"

Fortunately, there is not only one voice in Japan and Guttentag received a lot of help from locals.

Matihuka, a Japanese elementary school teacher, rang people's doorbells with the camera running, and started the conversation with "Can you talk about the incident?"

She generously let the crew use her footage, including interviews with veteran Japanese soldiers talking about their experience in the horrible winter in Nanjing.

Guttentag said as a director he wanted the film to reach the biggest audience possible.

"I want teenagers in the United States who know nothing about it, the 80-year-old in China who still remembers it, the 50-year-olds who know something about it, and the 30-year-olds who know nothing about it, to see the film," he said.

And Leonsis believes this film, similar to March of the Penguins, and Fahrenheit 9/11, will be able to tap into audiences attuned to the subjects, as he told the Washington Post.

He considers these films to be "nichebusters" because they generate intense interest among disparate segments of society, adding up to a big audience. He and his team believe the film has crossover appeal among several "niches" including Chinese, Japanese, Germans and Christians.

Leonsis has sold broadcast rights for Nanking to CCTV, the Chinese national television network to ensure the film would reach China's 500 million households. He also hoped the theatrical release would be followed by DVD, TV and cable sales. Then he wanted people to find the movie online. He is creating a Nanking website, where people can download the film for free.

"The most important message we want to convey is in remembrance of the wartime horror," said Guttentag, "so that we will not repeat the same mistake when we move on."

The profit out of this film, which will premiere in China on July 7 and is expected to screen in the US at the end of the year, will go toward creating a foundation for the victims and their offspring, said Leonsis. But according to Guttentag, the Japanese government is unlikely to allow the film to be screened in their country.

Photos, letters and other historical evidence he assembled for the film will be donated to Georgetown University, where Leonsis studied.

(China Daily 07/06/2007 page20)