"When they came in they killed my father. My mother was holding a child. They grabbed and smashed the baby to death. They ripped off my mother's clothing...". The stories of survivors torment a young Iris Chang: images of bodies piled on top of each other, and a river running red...But when Iris wanted to find out more, she found nothing written on the massacre in English. "Why had it disappeared from the history books?"

Iris knew this was a story she had to tell. Her grandparents had fled Nanking when the streets began to fill with blood, and their memories deeply affected her. Looking at a picture of a man, ruthlessly decapitated, she said that: "In a single moment I saw the fragility of human life."

As the testimonies emerge, the full scale of the atrocities comes to light. One British reporter compared the invading Japanese to Attila and the huns. Even the Japanese reporters could not believe the brutality of their soldiers: "I saw a mass killing..blood splattered everywhere. The chilling atmosphere made one's hair stand on end and limbs tremble with fear".

Yet amid the horror, a story of heroism emerges. John Rabe, a German businessman, headed a committee of foreigners who stayed behind in Nanking to create a Safety Zone. They saved thousands from the slaughter. Rabe alone sheltered 600 refugees in his own home. Ironically, Rabe was a member of the Nazi party: an influence he used to dissuade the Japanese from their rampage.

For Iris, the more she learned of the massacre, the more she learned of "the potential of all human being for evil, not just the Japanese, not just the Germans". Yet for millions, her courageous journey to bring this forgotten tragedy to life, is one of the century's most inspiring.

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Best Documentary, New York Film Festival

Special Jury prize, Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival