SFIFF: Up the Yangtze

~ Lincoln Spector

Tuesday evening I caught Up the Yangtze, a documentary by Canadian director Yung Chang.

China’s Three Gorges Dam, still under construction, may be the largest hydroelectric project ever attempted, and Chang’s film takes an unusual but effective approach to examining the project’s repercussions. He focuses his camera on two teenagers working a cruise ship that takes western tourists along the river, as well as one of those teenagers’ parents–a peasant couple forced to relocate as the waters rise. This is not about a construction project, but about the millions of people who have been or will be moved because of the dam.

Chang attended the screening and answered questions after it. Among other answers, he told us how the people in his film are doing now.

You have one more chance to see Up the Yangtze at the San Francisco International Film Festival: Thursday, 8:55, at the Pacific Film Archive. But don’t despair if you miss it; its theatrical run opens June 13.

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Published by Lincoln Spector

Lincoln Spector writes about cinema, technology, and cinema technology. From 1986 through 2008, he wrote Gigglebytes, the first technology-oriented humor column. From 1977 through 2016, he wrote PC World's Answer Line column and blog.