Screening and discussion with film director Jiang Nengjie
Tuesday, November 25, 2025
10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Melnitz Hall Darren Star Theater
The local economy in the southwest of Hunan province is not active. Therefore, the people either go out to work or work as miners in the mountains. As a result of mining accidents, the government has tried to regulate, but many people still mine illegally in order to make a living. Miners often go down mines without protection, and after many years, many of them develop pneumoconiosis.
Later, with prices plummeting and the government overhauling them, the need for survival is no longer met by illegal mining. Many people have to find other jobs, either farming at home or working south. The miners, suffering from pneumoconiosis, are on their way to misery.
“A father’s pain and fear bridges the gulf that separates urbanites from poor villagers in China, a horribly unequal society.” - The Economist
Director's Bio:
Independent filmmaker, documentary worker, and director. Born in 1985, he graduated from university in 2008. Originally from Hunan, he has been residing in Guangzhou since 2017. Founder of “Cotton Sand” Video Studio and “Cotton Sand” Village Library. Winner of the Phoenix Television Top Ten Public Welfare Figures Award. German Blue Study House Foundation 2024 Visiting Scholar. His works focus on topics such as left-behind children, war veterans, pneumoconiosis, intellectual disabilities, and sexual minorities. Representative works include "The Children of Village School," "Grade Nine," "Shorty," "Miners, the Horsekeeper, and Pneumoconiosis," "Anti-Japanese War Veteran," "We Will Have Everything," "General’s Attendant Guard," "Rainbow Cruise," and "Fen." His works have been shortlisted at the Shanghai International Film Festival, the Warsaw International Film Festival, the Beijing International Film Festival, and the Phoenix Documentary Awards, among other domestic and international film festivals. Both the individual and their film works have received exclusive interviews and coverage from renowned media outlets such as The Economist (UK) and Le Monde (France).
Sponsor(s): Center for Chinese Studies, Department of Film, Television and Digital Media