Building Bridges: Bill Youren's Vision of Peace

To visit China in 1952 would almost be akin to going to the Moon...

– James Beattie, Bill Youren's biographer, on his visits to China in the Cold War period

It would have taken a strong person to come up with the views he did and be prepared to say them publicly . . . certainly in the 50s which was a very narrow time for New Zealand's thought, he was somebody who broke that mould and was something of a role model for others.

– Peace activist Peter Hubscher, who was a family friend of Bill Youren

The initial idea for the film came from university colleagues James Beattie and Richard Bullen, who wrote a book on Bill Youren. Subsequently, after an exhibition of the Youren Chinese art collection circa 2014, English professor Paul Millar suggested a short film be made to promote further exhibitions. After screening that film in 2018, it was obvious that he was a beloved character still fondly remembered in Hawke's Bay. There was a bigger story to tell, and we had only seen the tip of the rich 8mm archival footage shot by Bill.

– Director John Chrisstoffels on how the film began, Flicks, 10 July 2023

China was not flavour of the month, and for a group of people to say that they wanted to go to a peace conference must have struck a lot of ordinary New Zealanders as a rather quaint idea. It was an act of some courage I think under those circumstances to get on the plane...

– One of those interviewed

A humanitarian of socialist inclination and an advocate of civil liberties, Bill Youren campaigned for world peace and nuclear disarmament. As vice president of the New Zealand Peace Council he attended peace conferences in India and Ceylon and the 1952 Peace Conference of the Asian and Pacific Regions in Beijing, China. Concerned about the dangers of isolating China, he faced considerable personal criticism as he sought to inform the conservative New Zealand of the 1950s about the historical background and realities of Chinese communism.

– B Dale Curham in a 2000 Te Ara profile of Bill Youren