Rent €4.50
Stream - One week's rental Buy €7.50
Download - For private home use only Get Screening Licence

Plastic China

Feature - 88 min Broadcast - 54 min

A portrait of poverty, ambition and hope set in a world of waste

Plastic China Laughter of playing children echoes through vast rolling hills of plastic waste. This recycling plant is home to Pen and his daughter Yi Jie, who is desperate for an education, and boss Kun, determined to improve his family’s lot. Over time, one man moves closer to prosperity whilst the other stagnates in poverty. This poetic doc reveals the lives of those on the fringes of global capitalist realities, a far cry from the communist dream.


Festivals

LaurelSundance Film Festival - Official Selection
LaurelIDFA - Special Jury Award for First Appearance
LaurelFull Frame Documentary Film Festival - Environmental Award
LaurelMillenium International Film Festival - Official Selection
LaurelOne World International Film Festival - Best Director Award
LaurelBIFED - 2nd Prize International Competition
LaurelLA Asian Pacific Film Festival - Grand Jury Award
LaurelFirst International Film Festival - Official Selection
LaurelTaipei Golden Horse Awards - Best Film Editing Award & Best Documentary Nomination

Reviews and More

Plastic China (2016) on IMDb

Review in the Hollywood Reporter
Review in Variety

Read the New York Times article on 'China’s Environmental Woes, in Films That Go Viral, Then Vanish', featuring Plastic China here.

Watch a Q&A with director Jiuliang Wang and team at Sundance here.

TRANSCRIPT

The Producers


Director of the award-winning and impactful documentary film BEIJING BESIEGED BY WASTE, Jiuliang Wang graduated from the Communication University of China, School of Cinematic Arts in 2007. From 2007 to 2008, he finished a set of photography work about Chinese traditional superstitions. He started investigating the landfill pollution around Beijing in 2008. In 2011, he finished BEIJING BESIEGED BY WASTE, a set of photography work and a documentary with the same name. From 2012 to now, he has been working on the documentary PLASTIC CHINA, which premiered at Sundance 2017.

Making The Film


In March 2011, I carried out a detailed research on disposal of garbage from Europe and US in China. During the research, I’m skeptical about the prosperous landscape of China under the long-term economic growth mode of “pollution for development”, as the “prosperity” is accompanied with huge environmental crisis and reconciled social contradictions among different stratums. I went to a small town in northern China which has more than 30 years’ history of plastic waste processing as its core industry and involves almost all people in this town. Although the local economy seem booming by the processing industry, the environment of the town was seriously polluted. There is no clean water, no fresh air and no safe food. A lot of people who lives there are suffering a variety of deadly diseases.


With a lot of doubts in my mind, I wanted to learn more about the people who live there. I wanted to know what kind of life styles they have and what kind of value judgment they have. I expected to find the answers by making this documentary film. I believe that even the most common life can reveal the gene of the society. I hope the audience can understand the properties of ‘plastic’ that are commonly found across different aspects of China, and also hope the audience can be aware this attribute to the joint action of current Chinese system and global consumerism system.

OTHER FILMS YOU MAY LIKE

FEATURED FILMS

This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you are agreeing to our use of cookies. For more info see our Cookies Policy