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'Gathering Dust'

posted on Tuesday, May 01, 2007 11:09 AM

‘Blindspot Productions’ is a newly formed documentary company that aims to raise awareness on social issues through film. Co-founders Camilla French and Judy Bretschneider recently returned from Beijing where they shot a documentary on migrant workers called ‘Gathering Dust’. The film was screened in collaboration with ‘The Red Room’ at ‘The Story of Work – Platform’ exhibition in Copenhagen. Camilla is a student at The London Film School and Judy is a graduate of the School of Oriental and African studies. They share a passion for China and both speak Mandarin.

“Our latest project ‘Gathering Dust’ is a collection of fleeting portraits of migrants in Beijing. It visits a construction worker, a cleaner, a migrant school teacher, street vendors, sex workers and migrant children. These migrants come from poor rural areas, and when in Beijing, live at the fringes of urban society. Yet they perform many of the menial jobs without which, Beijing’s and China’s astonishing development would not be possible. We wanted to capture these stories on film and spent 3 weeks in Beijing shooting the project. It wasn’t always easy, as migration is a sensitive subject. We found many closed doors, especially with the Olympics only one year away. But in the end, it was about people who wanted to tell their stories of migrating to Beijing from different parts of China.”

Official statistics place the number of internal migrants over 130 million: 10% of China’s entire population. Today, they make up more than 40% of the urban workforce, and being largely unskilled labourers, they perform menial tasks such as rubbish collection and construction. Despite their large numbers, internal migrants are strongly disenfranchised compared to urban residents. China’s household registration system (hukou) ties government services to native place and occupation. Poor migrants are prevented from accessing social services in urban areas, such as subsidized housing, free education and pensions.

“We plan to go back in the summer to continue filming on this topic and begin research on a few other ideas.”

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