A Clear Sky
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Release Year:
2012
Story:
On the Mongolian plateau, the Geritu family fought against flying snow to cut camel hair, deliver calves, feed newborn calf cakes and lambs, and solve the inconvenience caused by coal mining. In the early summer, the Geritu family sold most of the lambs and cattle. This is his family's income for one year. The younger brother Baoyin came to live in the town from the pastoral area after selling the grassland for the mining area. He took the horse to a tourist spot in the city to run a tourist business and even invested in real estate. The annual Grassland Cultural Festival began. My brother's family participated in the horse racing, and Baoyin and his partners performed equestrian skills for the audience. In order to take off economically, it is necessary to turn the original high-quality pastures into open-pit coal mines one after another. Herdsmen who live on livestock are searching for their own living space in the cracks of coal mines.
On the Mongolian plateau, the Geritu family fought against flying snow to cut camel hair, deliver calves, feed newborn calf cakes and lambs, and solve the inconvenience caused by coal mining. In the early summer, the Geritu family sold most of the lambs and cattle. This is his family's income for one year. The younger brother Baoyin came to live in the town from the pastoral area after selling the grassland for the mining area. He took the horse to a tourist spot in the city to run a tourist business and even invested in real estate. The annual Grassland Cultural Festival began. My brother's family participated in the horse racing, and Baoyin and his partners performed equestrian skills for the audience. In order to take off economically, it is necessary to turn the original high-quality pastures into open-pit coal mines one after another. Herdsmen who live on livestock are searching for their own living space in the cracks of coal mines.
Casts & Crews:
HARHUU (Hu LinPing)
Directors
Runtime:
72
minutes
Language:
Director‘s Statement:
I was born in the fields of Inner Mongolia. The lush ranches, fresh air, crystal clear streams, and flocks of sheep together form the picture of my childhood forever etched in my mind.
Yet today, the ranches of my youth have turned into mines. The river in which I used to fish and bathe with my friends have already run dry for many years. The sheep that we once herded are now nowhere to be found...
Our home, our society, and our earth are all changing, so much so that certain places are no longer suitable for living. While we human beings are pursuing modernized ways of living, we are also relinquishing our right to live on this planet. The pursuit of economic development cannot come at the price of sacrificing primitive culture or a magnificent natural environment. We should never wreck the environment on which generations and generations of our future offsprings must depend just on the comfortable living of our own generation.
What we want is for the human race to continue to thrive on this planet.
From Family on the Sky Lake to A Clear Sky, these two documentary films I made the place their focus on primitive culture and environment. These two factors are intertwined in the sense that culture can only be furthered in a suitable environment, while the environment also provides room for a culture to develop. No matter whether it is Inner Mongolia or Tibet, the fact is that it finds itself on the outskirts of a region of rapid economic development.
Here, though relatively laggard in terms of economic development, primitive culture has been preserved relatively well. That said, against the backdrop of the forceful push forward by modernization, this primitive culture will find itself trapped against walls closing in before eventually replaced completely altogether by modern civilization.
The fact that I am recording our lives with a video camera today probably has to do with the sentimentality of my youth as well as the innocent firmness to pursue things. I still remember that I was deeply concerned about a message I picked up when I was in junior high school. The message basically told me that a huge desert way up in the north was spreading out in all directions at the speed of hundreds of square meters per year. There was also another time when I told my friends that I would definitely build a colossal wind turbine on the mountain behind our house when I had the ability to do so one day.
Of course, looking back on it now, I could not have possibly constructed a wind turbine to replace the thermal power plant on my own, much less stop the desert from advancing. However, I believe the stories that I am shooting right now can converge more force and summon more love from other people to protect the culture passed on down from generations of the past as well as the environment on which our livelihood has depended.
Yet today, the ranches of my youth have turned into mines. The river in which I used to fish and bathe with my friends have already run dry for many years. The sheep that we once herded are now nowhere to be found...
Our home, our society, and our earth are all changing, so much so that certain places are no longer suitable for living. While we human beings are pursuing modernized ways of living, we are also relinquishing our right to live on this planet. The pursuit of economic development cannot come at the price of sacrificing primitive culture or a magnificent natural environment. We should never wreck the environment on which generations and generations of our future offsprings must depend just on the comfortable living of our own generation.
What we want is for the human race to continue to thrive on this planet.
From Family on the Sky Lake to A Clear Sky, these two documentary films I made the place their focus on primitive culture and environment. These two factors are intertwined in the sense that culture can only be furthered in a suitable environment, while the environment also provides room for a culture to develop. No matter whether it is Inner Mongolia or Tibet, the fact is that it finds itself on the outskirts of a region of rapid economic development.
Here, though relatively laggard in terms of economic development, primitive culture has been preserved relatively well. That said, against the backdrop of the forceful push forward by modernization, this primitive culture will find itself trapped against walls closing in before eventually replaced completely altogether by modern civilization.
The fact that I am recording our lives with a video camera today probably has to do with the sentimentality of my youth as well as the innocent firmness to pursue things. I still remember that I was deeply concerned about a message I picked up when I was in junior high school. The message basically told me that a huge desert way up in the north was spreading out in all directions at the speed of hundreds of square meters per year. There was also another time when I told my friends that I would definitely build a colossal wind turbine on the mountain behind our house when I had the ability to do so one day.
Of course, looking back on it now, I could not have possibly constructed a wind turbine to replace the thermal power plant on my own, much less stop the desert from advancing. However, I believe the stories that I am shooting right now can converge more force and summon more love from other people to protect the culture passed on down from generations of the past as well as the environment on which our livelihood has depended.
Casts & Crews
HARHUU (Hu LinPing)
Director
