How Long Is “Karamay”?

On December 8, 1994, 323 people were killed (mostly children ages six through fourteen) and 130 were injured in a fire that destroyed a community center in Karamay, a city in Northwest China. The youngsters were performing a show of music and dance when the fire broke out. However, Karamay is a city with rich oil reserves and the Xinjiang Petroleum Bureau, a firm affiliated with the Chinese government, owns most of the town; the city officials are also high-ranking executives with the company, and they were in attendance when the building caught fire. The city officials were escorted out first, while the children were ordered to wait in the building, essentially condemning them to death; adding to the tragedy, the facilities at the community center were known to be unsafe (particularly the lighting and electrical system) and the local fire department was poorly equipped to death with the disaster. Filmmaker Xiu Xin investigates the tragic 1994 fire, asks what could have been done to prevent it and reveals the cowardly actions that put the lives of the city's leaders ahead of the children in this epic-length documentary Karamay. Running over six hours, Karamay includes rare footage of the fire and its aftermath as well as interviews with a handful of survivors and the parents of some of the children who lost their lives in the blaze. Karamay has been banned in Mainland China but has been screened at a number of international film festivals, and received its United States premiere at the American Film Institute's 2010 AFI Fest.