ONE CHILD NATION

Dir. Nanfu Wang, Jialing Zhang, Chicago Media Project, 85 min, 2019, USA, (12+)

In place of the “one-child policy” Chinese propaganda is now proclaiming a “two-child plan”. What is hiding behind this type of policy implementation machinery, and what is the effect of this enormous system on citizens’ lives? Under what circumstances have those generations grown up in – those without whose manufactured goods we could not imagine living, but about whom we know next to nothing? While examining the fates of her immediate family, director Nanfu Wang explores one of the most ghastly social experiments in human history. And the viewer is invited to take a direct look into what is perhaps the most refined modern-day propaganda regime.

The plan to curb population growth in China began in 1979, and the 37-year-long ban on having more than one child, according to Chinese government data, “saved” the nation from at least 400 million infants. From 2016 China has allowed two children. According to UN estimates China currently has a population of 1.4 billion – 19% of all world inhabitants.