FILM SCREENING:

Beijing Besieged by Waste

(Wang Jiuliang, 2011, 72 min, China, in Mandarin w/ English subtitles, Color, DVD)

An informative and alarming portrait of urban ecology, the film has earned keen Chinese media coverage and the attention of government officials. With a population of about 20 million, the growing city of Beijing produces 30,000 tons of waste each day. Photographer/filmmaker Wang Jiuliang traveled around the city and visited 460 legal and illegal landfills from 2008 to 2010 to document the collection of garbage and excrement, the environmental calamity and the life cycles around these landfills, which include scavengers building a precarious livelihood, green spaces forming on top of waste, and livestock being fed trash.

Cost: Free and Open to the Public

Sponsors: The Program in the Arts of the Moving Image (AMI), the Asian/Pacific Studies Institute (APSI), the Council for European Studies (CES), the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), the Duke University Center for International Studies (DUCIS), the Duke Islamic Studies Center (DISC), the Duke University Middle East Studies Center (DUMESC), and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation "Partnership in a Global Age".