A+E Networks’® first international co-production with Jiangsu Broadcasting Corporation for documentary-drama, Scars of Nanking, won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Cinematography and was nominated for Outstanding Single Camera Editing at the recent 45th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards.
Marking the 80th anniversary of the brutal Nanking Massacre by Japanese invaders during World War II, the one-hour docu-drama premiered on Dec. 13, 2017 on HISTORY® in the U.S., HISTORY® Asia, and simultaneously on Jiangsu Satellite TV in China.
In Scars of Nanking, American missionaries struggle to save Chinese civilians from war crimes at the hands of Japanese invaders and to smuggle out evidence of the infamous Nanking Massacre of 1937. Many fled before the invasion, but 22 foreigners did not leave Nanking. This is the story of those who chose to stay even in the face of grave danger—American missionaries, some of them educators, doctors, and ministers, all determined to do what they could to save a quarter of a million Chinese civilians. Their stories come to life through actual letters and diaries they wrote themselves during that terrible time.
The docu-drama is also supported with a feature-length documentary called Scars of Nanjing: 80 Years After. In this 90-minute special, the traumatic events of Nanking are remembered through Chinese students, massacre survivors, and their descendants. Powerful insights are also offered by experts and renowned historians Ian Buruma, Daqing Yang, Alexis Dudden, and Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Christine Choy.
“We congratulate our partners at Jiangsu on the out-of-the-box success of Scars of Nanking, which marks a historic milestone for A+E Networks as the company’s first co-production in China,” said Edward Sabin, Executive Managing Director of A+E Networks International.
“We are excited to be working with A+E Networks, whose reputation for providing impactful, disruptive content clearly places it among the top providers of both factual and scripted content around the globe. A+E provides the perfect combination of talent and demonstrated acumen required to tell this important story to a mainstream global audience,” said Cao Haibin, General Manager of JSBC Documentary Media Co., Ltd.
Scars of Nanking is executive produced by A+E Network’s Christopher Humphrey in Singapore, directed by John Ealer, who also helmed A&E Networks’ acclaimed series The World Wars, and is produced and written by Frederick Rendina, with cinematography by John Cavill and editing by Melanie Foo Campbell.
The encore telecast of Scars of Nanking is set on May 26 and June 6 at 9:00 p.m. exclusively on HISTORY.