New Wide - screen Documentary

China's second wide-screen documentary in colour, Ode to the Motherland, was recently shown at the Capital Cinema in Peking. It is a film record of the colourful spectacle of the great October First National Day celebrations of last year in Peking. It gives a better view of the proceedings than any one person could possibly get from any vantage point on the huge Tien An Men Square. With such a ready-made theme it couldn't but be eye-filling, but it also has an introductory sequence that took three months to make with cameramen taking spectacular shots of China's magnificent scenery, new industrial enterprises in the north-east, the oilfields in Karamai, the opening of the Yangtse Bridge, and the start of work at the Yellow River's Sanmen Gorge where China's biggest hydro-electric power station is being built.