The 2022 Community Speaker Series presented by The Community Library and the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference welcomes journalist Erich Schwartzel.

Competition between the United States and China dominates the foreign policy landscape, from trade to technology to military might. But this battle for global influence is also playing out in a strange and unexpected arena: the movies. Erich Schwartzel, author of Red Carpet, will explain how the film industry is the latest battleground in the tense and complex rivalry between these two world powers.

In recent decades, China has become a crucial source of revenue for the American film industry; Hollywood studios are now bending over backward to make movies that will appeal to China’s citizens and gain approval from severe Communist Party censors. At the same time, and with America’s unwitting help, China has built its own film industry into an essential arm of its plan to export its national agenda to the rest of the world. The competition between these two movie businesses is a Cold War for this century, a clash that determines whether democratic or authoritarian values will be broadcast most powerfully worldwide.

This free event will be outdoors in Ketchum's Forest Service Park. Bring your camp chairs, blankets, picnics, and join us! No registration is required. The conversation will be livestreamed and available to view later. Click here to watch online.

Erich Schwartzel is the author of Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy, published in February 2022 by Penguin Press. Red Carpet details China's growing influence over the American film industry and the country's efforts to mount its own soft-power campaign around the globe. Schwartzel is a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, where he has covered Hollywood since 2013. Prior to joining the Journal, he worked at The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where his reporting on gas drilling across Appalachia won the Scripps Howard Award for Environmental Reporting. He grew up in Latrobe, Pa., and lives in Los Angeles with his partner.