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The Epic of Central Plains

Ai Xiaoming

Release year: 2007

Run time: 122 mins

Film type: Documentary

Synopsis

Many farmers in the poor villages of Henan Province are infected with AIDS through blood sales. This film takes a closer look at how these people are coping with life, how officials are dealing with these facts, and how volunteers are helping villagers who have contracted the disease. The director goes into a number of villages in Central China with a high incidence of AIDS, listening to farmers talk about the historical background of the rise of the "plasma economy", showing the survival of families, especially women and children, infected with AIDS through blood donations and transfusions, and documenting the formation and efforts of civil society organisations at grassroots level.

 

Director biography

A feminist professor in Sun Yat-Sen (Zhongshan) University, director of the Comparative Literature Section in Department of Chinese, program leader of Sex/Gender Education Forum, translator and director for the performance: The Vagina Monologue, a Chinese version. Documentaries jointly produced with Hu Jie are , , and < The Vagina Monologue, Stories from China>. The latter was selected in Women’s Films Festival organized by City University of New York as a side event of the United Nation’s 49th session of commission on the status of women.