Indigo Factory (Landian Chang, 2010)

The Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University presents a documentary film by Luo Limei.

Shot on the outskirts of Beijing, Luo Limei’s Indigo Factory is an observational documentary that raises concerns about the status of housing rights, labor, and disability in contemporary China. Established in 1958 under the call of Mao Zedong that “the blind should be independent,” the indigo factory attracted some 300 families with blind and deaf members over the years. After 30 years of operation, the factory closed, yet families continued to live in the homes surrounding the factory for over a decade after its closing. In 2003, the community began to face threats of demolition and relocation as real estate projects pushed forward with plans to commercialize and develop the district. Luo Limei's film is an intimate portrait of several aging members of the community and their families and reflects on the experiences of individuals with disabilities as they confront Beijing’s urban transformations. Under the sensitive gaze of her camera, the vibrant personalities of the community come alive, along with their candid voices of protest and discontent.

Luo Limei, born in 1977 near the China-Burma border, works as a director for television stations in Yunnan Province and also produces and directs independent documentary films, including several films about ethnic minority communities. Since the release of Indigo Factory in 2010, she has finished working on a film about the Mosuo people, a matriarchal community living near Lugu Lake on the border of Yunnan and Sichuan.

(Chinese with English Subtitles)