Under the Dome (film)

This article is about a 2015 Chinese environmental documentary film. For the science-fiction television series, see Under the Dome (TV series).

Under the Dome
Pollution in Chengdu in 2014, as depicted in Under the Dome
穹顶之下 (qióngdǐng zhī xià)
Directed byMing Fan
Produced byChai Jing
CinematographyXinqiang Hou
Release date
  • 28 February 2015 (2015-02-28)
Running time
104 minutes
CountryChina
LanguageMandarin
BudgetCN¥1m (US$160,000)[1]

Under the Dome (Chinese: 穹顶之下; pinyin: Qióngdǐng zhī xià) is a 2015 self-financed Chinese documentary by Chai Jing, a former China Central Television journalist, concerning air pollution in China. It was viewed over 150 million times on Tencent within three days of its release and had been viewed a further 150 million times by the time it was taken offline four days later.

Chai Jing started making the documentary when her as yet unborn daughter developed a tumor in the womb, which had to be removed very soon after her birth. Chai blames China's air pollution for the tumor. The film, which combines footage of a lecture with interviews and factory visits, has been compared with Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth in both its style and potential impact. The film openly criticizes state-owned energy companies, steel producers and coal factories, as well as showing the inability of the Ministry of Environmental Protection to act against the big polluters.

Despite demonstrating the failure of China's regulations on pollution, the Chinese government at first did not censor the film. Instead, the People's Daily reposted the film alongside an interview with Chai, while Chen Jining, the recently appointed minister for environmental protection, praised the film, expressing in a text message his gratitude.[2] However, within a week, the Communist Party’s publicity department confidentially ordered the film to be removed. An employee of China Business News was suspended for leaking the order.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference FT150302 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cui, Shuqin (27 December 2016). "Chai Jing's Under the Dome: A multimedia documentary in the digital age". Journal of Chinese Cinemas. 11 (1): 30–45. doi:10.1080/17508061.2016.1269481. ISSN 1750-8061. S2CID 193714222.