Documentary filmmaker Ruby Yang is taking on Chinas most sensitive topics such as HIV/AIDS, tobacco, the ravages of smoking, homosexuality and the environment.
Washington, Jan 7 : Documentary filmmaker Ruby Yang is taking on China's most sensitive topics such as HIV/AIDS, tobacco, the ravages of smoking, homosexuality and the environment.
The filmmaker is laying bare some of China's thorniest issues with the full support of state organizations in the country, where censorship remains fierce and where authorities ban discussing sensitive domestic issues than for revealing them to the world.
Funded by the Starr Foundation, Yang's 39-minute Oscar-winning film, 'The Blood of Yingzhou' tracks a year in the life of AIDS orphans in China's Anhui Province.
The documentary was followed by three public service advertisements promoting condom use, endorsed by Jackie Chan.
The advertisements, produced with the support of the Ministry of Health, were the first to air on state-owned broadcaster China Central Television's national network, CCTV 1.
Yang's next project is a documentary on gay life and the pressures created by China's one-child policy.
"There's a lot of pressure to produce an heir. Many gay men are married and live a double life. They lie to their parents, lie to their wives," the Hollywood Reporter, as saying.
Yang has also joined forces with China's Center for Disease Control to work on ways to promote a smoke-free 2008 Olympics in a country with 350 million smokers.
Another projects in the pipeline are two- to three-minute films for the Internet profiling environmental 'heroes.' However, she faced a hard time raising money for the environmental series.
"A lot of multinationals are willing to give support for AIDS because it's really hot, but the environment and pollution is very sensitive," she said.
"Usually polluters are big business, so it comes down to the government. Al Gore is helping in the West, but in China it's a different case.
"Foundations are more into global warming than pollution. The carbon economy is really big, but China's basic problem is water pollution," she added.
ANI