The Warriors of Qiugang (39 minutes)
January 26, 2011 11:33 AM   Subscribe

The Warriors of Qiugang: A Chinese Village Fights Back, nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject).

The film chronicles the story of the Chinese village of Qiugang (pop. 1,900 - in Anhui Province about 150 miles west of Nanjing), and its battle against three polluting chemical factories.

Other short doc films nominated (trailer only):

*Born Sweet
*Killing in the Name
*Living for 32
*Poster Girl
*Strangers No More
*Sun Come Up
posted by stbalbach (5 comments total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
I read that at first as "Warriors of Qi Gong," and expected to see video of the slowest martial arts battle ever.
posted by msalt at 11:54 AM on January 26, 2011


"The kids have to sign, too. They suffer, too."

This is great.
posted by basicchannel at 12:07 PM on January 26, 2011


That bit where Mr Zhang has Hu Jintao's 2004 speech text is so reminiscent of the anti-tax and fees activists who kept protesting until illegal subventions on fsrmers were abolished a few years back - people educating themselves on central policy, which is usual plenty good enough on paper. Of course, as is clear from the film, the disconnect between a mafia-ised local government hand in glove with the factories (or property developers and so on) with all the pecuniary incentives to break the law and that fine-sounding national legislation is obvious to all - and not helped when one of the key standards by which local officials are judged is still is attracting business and industry and raising headline GDP stats for the county.
I noticed in the news here just yesterday that Premier Wen went to meet petitioners who come to central agencies in Beijing to report and seek redress for problems just such as this; he's part of that wing of the Party who are well aware of that gap between stated aims and the reality, but it's going to take something much more root-and-branch than symbolic encouragement, and the financial incentives to keep turning a blind eye to abuse won't just go away because of good intentions.
posted by Abiezer at 12:48 PM on January 26, 2011 [1 favorite]


On a lighter note, I wish my Chinese handwriting was as 'bad' as Mr Zhang's!
posted by Abiezer at 12:50 PM on January 26, 2011


This is a good article keep them coming!
posted by goals for at 7:46 PM on January 26, 2011


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