Uphill Downhill

Directed by Chen Xiuyuan
15 min | 2019 |USA

On June 15th, 2019, we arrived at Tanchang. A county locates in Gansu province, China with a population of 300 thousand. According to the government report, Tanchang is still one of the poorest and most underdeveloped counties in the province. In 2017, Tanchang had about 73 thousand people living below the poverty line. However, when we sat our feet on its downtown, the busy scenes we saw did not fit our concept of poverty whatsoever. Then, we decided to leave the town and explore its surrounding area. We were curious: if Tanchang is already such a prosperous place, why is it still considered impoverished?

Directed by Xiuyuan Chen
Written by Shixue Shao
Produced by Li Shangyou

An ET8 Studio Production
Summer 2019

2019年6月15日，我们一行人到达了位于甘肃省南部的宕昌县。根据甘肃省脱贫攻坚小组办公室发布的文件，宕昌仍然属于甘肃省的深度贫困县之一。2017年，宕昌全县共有7.31万贫困人口，150个建档立卡贫困村，和181个深度贫困村。可是，当我们站在县城的中心向周围望去，这里的繁华喧闹都与其他非贫困县的毫无区别。在惊讶之余，我们决定走出县城，去周围的小村寨里看看。我们好奇，既然宕昌县城都如此兴盛了，那么这里没有全县脱贫的原因究竟又是什么呢？

2019 夏