Human Rights and Video in China: A Conversation with Ai Xiaoming
By: Priscila Néri
Posted: Mar 5 09
Witnessed: 918 times
Regions: China
Issues: Freedom of opinion & expression, HIV-AIDS, Women's rights
Tags: Ai Xiaoming, blood safety, gender studies, HIV/AIDS, political oppression, sexual rights, video advocacy, Women's rights
Ai Xiaoming, a professor at the Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China, is a feminist literary scholar, documentary filmmaker, and human rights activist. Throughout her career, Ai Xiaoming has used video to highlight important social issues like women's rights. She has also documented the rise of HIV/AIDS in impoverished rural Chinese communities, where families were selling their blood to generate income and then contracting HIV through tainted transfusions.
Ai Xiaoming has produced, directed, and worked on several films including Taishi Village, Garden in Heaven, Care and Love, and the Chinese rendition of The Vagina Monologues. In 2004, Ai Xiaoming set up an independent digital video studio in China aimed at empowering marginalized groups to tell their stories through media training workshops.
In this interview with WITNESS, Ai Xiaoming reflects on the role of documentary film in human rights advocacy in China and abroad.
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