Over 15 million people, possibly up to 76 million, are though to have died, yet in official reports, Beijing refers to it only as the "Three Years of Difficulties." 

The outside world calls it "The Great Famine," one of the most tragic results of Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward, a period when communist Chinese officials still new to positions of power grossly overestimated the country's agricultural output. Grain and other foodstuffs were taken from the country to the cities and even exported abroad as China's farmers descended into a period of lethal starvation from 1958 to 1961.

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The intellectual community turned their eyes away from the slow-motion massacre, but students at China's universities did not. They published a magazine, Spark, to document the suffering of the countryside, often at the cost of their lives.

"No one dared to criticise the government," said documentary filmmaker Hu Jie to reporters from The Guardian. "I wanted people to have a chance to get to know real history." 

In his film Spark, Hu found enough of those students had survived to document one of the greatest mass-deaths to occur in the 20th century. Hu is no stranger to the demythification of Mao; his films have highlighted the excesses of China's early communist government from the 1950s to the 1970s.

Working on a shoe-string budget along with his wife, Jiang Fenfen, after he was fired from the state-run Xinhua News Agency for his documentary work, Jie is one of a growing handful working to lay bare modern China's early days. Not restricting himself to the Great Famine, Jie has touched upon the lives of many anti-communist revolutionaries, including teacher Bian Zhongyun who was killed by her students and the execution of Wang Peiying, who called upon Mao to resign. 

Beijing officially denies the death-toll of the Great Famine, and several filmmakers, including Yang Jisheng, Wu Wenguang, and Jei himself, cannot have their work released in China. Jie remains resolute.

"These people in the documentaries were dying for us; they sacrificed themselves to save us. We are indebted morally to tell their stories," said Hu. 

TagsHu Jie, Spark, film, Mao Zedong, Great Famine