Chung Kuo, la Chine

In 1972, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, the People's Republic of China invited Michelangelo Antonioni to come and film it. The director of "L'Avventura" and "Blow-Up" travelled the country for several weeks for RAI, Italian television. He came back with "Chung Kuo, Cina", a long documentary that looks at faces, streets and the gestures of work rather than at slogans.

The film was released in France on 1 September 1973. For the French version, the voice speaking the commentary is mine. I was then one of the anchors of the first channel's news, and that same September I presented on air the outcome of Georges Pompidou's visit to Beijing. China was entering French living rooms, through the news and through the cinema.

A film that became an affair of state

A few months later, in 1974, the Chinese authorities launched a campaign of rare violence against the film and its maker, accused of denigrating the country. "Chung Kuo" was to remain banned there for decades. With time it has become what it was from the start: a remarkably gentle gaze at a country then almost invisible to the West.

I did not come to the subject as a stranger: during my years at Agence France-Presse I had interviewed Zhou Enlai. But it is the only time my voice has accompanied the work of a master of cinema. The film journals of the day recorded it, as do the listings of the cinemas that still screen the film.