Modern China Studies

The Sichuan earthquake took 90,000 lives and left 5 million people homeless. Beichuan, once a beautiful valley town, was entirely leveled and nearly every family lost a loved one. But the Chinese construction miracle rebuilt a new city in just three years and what began as a journey to overcome loss becomes entangled with dreams of an upgraded life. As the survivors emerge from China’s worst natural disaster in decades, they speak for today’s Chinese generation thrust into the nation’s relentless pursuit of progress and violently uprooted from their past.

The Nan Shui Bei Diao (South Water North Move), designed to move water from the south to the north of China, is the biggest water transfer project the world has ever seen. Charting the path of this national construction project, the film maps the turbulent cartography of a territory where cement defeats the plains, rivers are deviated from their natural course, deserts become forests and where gradually people are becoming vocal, demanding justice and the right to speak out. While matter decomposes and individuals are becoming alarmed, a science-fiction landscape, against nature, is reconstituted.