2018 Global Health Film Festival

It is well know how the rise of China as an economic power has taken a tool in their environment and general health of the Chinese population. Since the outbreak of the 2008 financial crisis, the Western world has increasingly pointed to China as the potential savior of global capitalism. This is based on the economic thesis that demand of Chinese consumers, which has been pumped up by increasing governmental spending in infrastructure, urban renewal, and social welfare programs would stabilized the global market place. China’s potential to inject new energy into the sluggish world economy was a reality. Today China is looking at ways to address many of the externalities of such process, some directed to their social and environmental concerns that were put aside as it rise to the global stage. Filmmakers have been looking at these process of development with critical eyes. Air and water pollution, soil degradation, waste management, urban growth, mass displacement, etc., are some of the topics they have been looking at. This edition of the GHFF would examine some of these issues from: air pollution in UNDER THE DOME (2015), waste management, recycling, and environmental justice in PLASTIC CHINA (2016), to environmental degradation in BEHMOTH (2015). Each film functions as a time capsule that with unique formal and subject matter strategies take the audience in visual journeys to issues of local concerns with global breath. MRS