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| HBO's Original Documentary Uncovers The Aftermath Of China's Earthquake Disaster |
| Posted
on Monday, April 27, 2009 - 03:10 PM |
Coinciding with the first anniversary of one of China’s deadliest tragedies, HBO Canada, a multiplex channel of Corus Entertainment’s Movie Central (Western Canada) and Astral Media’s The Movie Network (Eastern Canada), presents China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province. Premiering day-and-date with HBO in the U.S. on Thursday, May 7 at 8 p.m. ET/MT, this new, original documentary explores the aftermath of the catastrophic 7.9 earthquake that hit Sichuan Province in rural China on May 12, 2008, resulting in nearly 70,000 deaths, including 10,000 children.
As the earth shook, supposedly earthquake-resistant school buildings crumbled, wiping out classrooms full of students, most of them their parents’ only child. But when the grieving mothers and fathers sought explanations and justice, they found their path blocked by incompetence, corruption and empty promises. Rushing to China after the earthquake’s damage was announced around the world, filmmakers Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill witnessed the mishandled search and rescue attempts and saw parents forced to remove their own children’s bodies from the ruins and bury them in above-ground graves on their own property.
In this documentary, Alpert and O’Neill follow a group of parents from the town of Fuxin on their 70-mile march to the provincial capital, holding pictures of their dead children and demanding an investigation into the construction of the schools. Instead, they are met by apathetic local officials who intimidate and argue with them for speaking out against the Communist Party and the Chinese government.
Alpert and O’Neill were able to courier their footage out of China before being detained and questioned for eight hours by Chinese officials. The result is a documentary that offers a compelling view of the harsh political realities of modern China and the dark side of its booming economy and volume of construction, set against a backdrop of unimaginable loss and suffering.
China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province is the latest project from the Emmy®-winning filmmaking team behind Baghdad ER, Section 60: Arlington National Cemetery and Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq.
The documentary will also be offered in high definition on HBO Canada HD and will be available on The Movie Network OnDemand and Movie Central On Demand following its network premiere.
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