Dancing with the Dead: Red Pine and the Art of Translation

Filmmaker Ward Serrill (The Heart of the Game; The Bowmakers) presents a new project on Port Townsend’s Bill Porter. Porter, who goes by the pen name Red Pine, is a renowned translator of ancient Chinese poetry. He has published over thirty books, including Road to Heaven, an autobiographical testament of his quest to find hermits in the Zhongnan Mountains, which reignited a movement in modern China to seek enlightenment through poetry and mountain solitude. 

The film traces Bill's life, from his affluent upbringing as a child of a bank robber, to his decision to turn his back on the American devotion to materialism and instead live in the monasteries of Taiwan's mountains. His fascination with Buddhism and poetry guided his extensive travels through remote regions of China to pursue an ancient tradition of mountain hermits, vital to Chinese culture.

“Inside China, he’s a source of endless fascination, because here’s a Westerner who really gets it, who really understands China, who clearly loves Chinese culture, who’s devoted his life to it.” - Ian Johnson, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

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