Unidentified Falling Objects in Rural China

The same technology that feeds your cell phone signal has also devastated Chinese villages. We rely on satellites for telecommunication, but the faultiest of those orbiters have turned into lethal projectiles, pulverising Jiangsu’s Suining County – as seen in the documentary Falling From the Sky. Director Zhang Zanbo shot the film in villages draped in the shadow of a government launch pad that scrambled to provide IT infrastructure for the Beijing Olympics.

Viewers can glimpse the smouldering rubble and interviews with the victims during the movie’s Apr 27 Culture Yard screening. Below, the director answers our questions about how to cope with a falling sky.

What’s it like to film a community constantly living in fear? Did many villagers become hermits and not leave the house? Or were some defiant, refusing to change their routines?
Like my movie, these people are very simple and straightforward. They’re content with life. At times it seemed that they were barely affected by the wreckage. Immediately after the impact there was more than a strong sense of fear, of course.

Why weren’t they bitter? After all, their lives were put in danger by faulty satellites rushed for the sake of a sports extravaganza.
Actually, a key scene in the film is the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games, except it’s from the viewpoint of these villagers buying TVs to watch it. I turned my camera on a young child in front of the TV, staring at the opening ceremony’s flag-raising. As the national anthem played, the kid’s eyes were shining with excited light. I was moved that this child, and all the other villagers, loved their country and their homes. But that feeling was complicated by the fact that they’re victims of the national will and the Olympic satellites.

What other moments moved you while shooting this documentary?
As much as anything I shot, I was just as shocked by the footage of those Olympic ceremonies that captivated the villagers so much. The military’s performance in front of the camera surprised me – it was obvious they were trying to be so relaxed and so real, as if a director had hired superb actors to follow written lines.

I’m assuming things didn’t go quite so smoothly in your own movie. What was the biggest challenge?
I shot the villagers moving away from wreckage in a field where a satellite had just crashed. We were under a lot of rain. I had to hold on tightly to the video camera with one hand at times, because my umbrella was broken and leaking, and I had to hold it up to keep my equipment dry. I only had sports shoes, and cold mud was getting into them. I was freezing and starving.

Is everyone there disillusioned with the government or the space program? Has all this changed the way they look at the skies?
They almost never think about that, that’s an intellectual problem. These are hardworking, everyday people. They’re more interested in being diligent, being able to work and having an ordinary life.

See those salt-of-the-earth villagers grapple with outer space projectiles at The Culture Yard on April 27 (this screening was rescheduled from the previous week). Zhang himself is unable to attend the screening as previously planned, although a fellow filmmaker and close friend of the director’s will host in his place. For this reason, tickets will be sold for the reduced price of RMB 25. For more information call 84044166 or email contact@cultureyard.net.

Photo: Beijingtoday.com