Synopsis
For three decades the world has witnessed China's fast economic development. In 2009 the Chinese government began to implement a 586 billion US dollars plan as an attempt to minimize the impact of the global financial crisis on the world's second largest economy. The plan was to invest in infrastructure and social welfare throughout China.
Some scholars have called the plan the Second Great Leap Forward referring to Chairman Mao's disastrous plan in the 1940s that cost millions of lives. It was an absurd period where all citizens were mobilized to refine metal.
The Chinese director Zhang Zanbo managed in 2010 to get unique and unprecedented access to the implementation of the financial plan. For more than three years the director filmed the making of a section of a highway through a quiet village in Hunan, a province in central China. This is the province where Chairman Mao was born. The result is a rare insight to the impact the financial plan has had on a local community.
For three years Zhang Zanbo followed the construction of the highway from start to finish. The main character throughout the film is Mr. Meng, the vice president of a private construction company responsible for the construction of a part of the highway system. He appears whenever there is an argument or a fight. In China, a great number of people are working for "stabilization", and Mr. Meng is leading such a position in the construction company.
Zhang Zanbo has filmed the management team as well as the local residents and the workers.
The film follows local villagers and peasants that are forced to move due to land acquisition. Temples are moved and migrant workers experience lack of safety under very difficult working conditions. Most of the workers on the construction site are migrant Chinese workers that travel around the country to make a living.
The management of the construction company has been strongly supported by the Communist Party and the local authorities, but they want their share of the financial apple. As a consequence corruption and violence has become a common part of the making of the road.
Director Statement
Along with China's rapid economic growth, in the passed ten years, China has built more than 70,000 kilometers of new highways, making the total length 120,000 kilometers, the first place in the world. "China Miracle" and "China Speed" have caught the attention of the world again. For the government, this is great achievement, splendid glory, and symbol of modernization, marking that China has entered an age of high-speed development. How these roads were built? What are the untold stories behind the magical development?
I went to a highway construction site in early 2010 in search of an answer to my questions. At that time, the Chinese government was implementing its RMB¥ 4 trillion (US$ 586 billion) plan to pull up domestic demand and stimulate economy. Infrastructure including road construction has accounted a big percentage of investment. A new round of highway construction came like a ferocious tide. With this grand historical background, I spent almost four years documenting the
China chose for its growth. I wish that The Road would be a fable of our time on China's development path.
Biography of the director
Zhang Zanbo is a Chinese independent filmmaker. He graduated from Beijing Film Academy in 2005 with a Master's Degree, and later established Asymptote Films. His works have been continuously focusing on individual dignities and living conditions in a fast developing China. He is also a freelance non-fiction writer. His non-fiction book has been published in Taiwan and Chinese mainland.
Filmography
The Road (2015)
The Interceptor from My Hometown (2011)
A Song of Love, Maybe (2010)
Falling From the Sky (2009)
Righteous Flame (2011, short)
Disappear in the green grass, dried grass and duckweed (2011, short)
What We Talk About When We Talk About Sex (2011, short)
Red White and Blue (2011, short)
My grandfather's address in Taipei (2010, short)
Festival & Awards
28th International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam 2015, Competition for International Feature-length Documentary
39th Göteborg Film Festival (GÖTEBORG, SWEDEN)
Human Rights Human Wrongs Film Festival (Oslo, Norway)
