| The Ditch | |
|---|---|
 Film poster, with logos of the 67th Venice International Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival | |
| Directed by | Wang Bing |
| Written by | Wang Bing |
| Produced by | Wang Bing K. Lihong Hui Mao Philippe Avril |
| Cinematography | Lu Sheng[1] |
| Edited by | Marie-Helene Dozo |
Release date |
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Running time | 109 minutes |
| The Ditch | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | 夹边沟 | ||||||
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| Goodbye Jiabiangou | |||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 告别夹边沟 / 再见夹边沟 | ||||||
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The Ditch, also known as Goodbye Jiabiangou, is a 2010 film produced and directed by Wang Bing, an independent Chinese filmmaker better known for his work on documentaries. The film, on the subject of Chinese forced-labour camps during early 1960 Maoist China era, was chosen to be the film sorpresa in the 2010 Venice Film Festival.[2]
The film focuses on the suffering of Chinese who were imprisoned in a forced labor camp called Jiabiangou in the Gobi Desert in winter 1960 under Mao Zedong on the grounds that they were "rightist elements". The film tells of the harsh life of these men, who coped with physical exhaustion, extreme cold, starvation and death on a daily basis.[2]
- ^ Marshall, Lee (10 September 2010) "The Ditch", Screen Daily
- ^ a b Beames, Robert (6 September 2011) "Venice 2010 Review: THE DITCH; the 'film sorpresa' that couldn’t live up to last year’s Herzog"