China Inside Out

Short Synopsis

A series of award-winning documentaries from China being prepared for US broadcast on LinkTV, PBS stations etc. Programs are stories of communities, families, arts, sustainability, peacemakers, spirituality - ordinary daily life in locations all over China, as beautifully told by local filmmakers and translated and contextualized by Living Earth Television.

Description/Treatment

"China Inside Out" is a series of eight professionally produced television documentaries telling stories of community life in regions all over China, created by local Chinese filmmakers. Living Earth Television is licensing, translating, contextualizing and broadcasting these important programs for a national US audience, with broadcast interest from LinkTV (national nonprofit satellite service) and PBS stations.

Television documentary is a powerful means for introducing viewers to the people, lifeways and environments of other cultures. Through video documentary, audiences and students can step inside the life of a society they might never have the opportunity to visit. Viewing stories told by professional filmmakers about their own communities half a world away (or on the next block) is a low-key but deeply effective way of introducing intercultural understanding. And when understanding replaces ignorance, appreciation and friendship can replace fear and hostility.

“China Inside Out” is a series of such documentaries, made by professional producers in China. These programs tell the stories of families and communities from the point of view of those sharing their culture. Documenting lives in the most modern of urban settings as well as in remote rural communities, the programs unveil daily realities that can be astonishingly exotic or surprisingly familiar, as lived by people easily recognizable as kin – sharing the same challenges, passions, concerns and joys as others everywhere.

This series of Chinese documentaries will serve as the model for ongoing program acquisition, translation, contextualization and broadcast by Living Earth Television. They will also serve as the core of an educational module on contemporary Chinese life, useful for language instruction as well as social studies. After the broadcast of the initial series, “China Inside Out,” LETV expects to maintain a pipeline of new programming from China, providing translated and contextualized versions to broadcasters in the US and internationally. Following the successful launch of programming from China, Living Earth Television will immediately launch additional programming from and for other regions of the world, including providing from the USA to broadcasters around the world.

Living Earth Television founder and Executive Director Martha Foster has worked with intercultural documentary for over twenty-five years. She has worked with the Chinese television sector for ten years, visiting stations, festivals and universities all over China. She has seen hundreds of contemporary Chinese documentaries, and has selected a stunning cross-section of outstanding programs representing different regions and settings.

Of the six programs selected for the initial series, four are from urban areas. One comes from a herding community in Inner Mongolia, where an extended family of herders as they move their yurt from pasture to pasture, bundling the baby onto the back of a camel for the day’s journey. Another is from a Buddhist temple in a rural region of Southern China, where the story of five little girls being raised by the nuns who rescued them as abandoned infants gives insight into spiritual life in China as well as the consequences of the one-child policy. A third program tells the story of a typical construction site, where workers come from far-flung villages to live in a dorm, eat on-site at the cafeteria, and make a good wage, saving for personal dreams and goals that they describe to the viewer. A fourth follows a young couple who have dated for a few years and are deciding whether to take the next step into marriage. A fifth tells the story of a multi-generational family of artists whose beautifully colorful folk paintings tell a cascade of stories of life in China. Finally, a brilliant, quirky world-class documentary tells the story of a retired circus performer whose trained Panda lives in a cage in the living room of her apartment, where they stay in touch with the outside world via their television set. Each program is done in a creative, compelling style perfectly fitting the story.

The unique feature of each of these programs is the insiders’ view. No visiting foreign television crew could tell the same stories from the same perspective. These programs are some of a rich and endless supply of fascinating tales from around the world. By utilizing an existing body of work, and preparing it for and providing it to new audiences, Living Earth Television is creating a new global network of public television, with programming by the people of the world, delivered to people all over the world.

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Following the successful launch of the Chinese programming, LETV will proceed to other world regions, working with existing contacts and cultivating new ones within the production, broadcast, education, and festival realms. LETV’s second series will focus on sub-Saharan Africa, with future plans to work with programming from every continent and region. Active current contacts include some in Russia, India, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Botswana, Australia, Jordan, Pakistan, Myanmar, Thailand, Turkey, Indonesia, Native American communities, and more. American programming will also be provided to international broadcasters, to give a realistic, in-depth and varied view of contemporary American society missing from the current exports of Hollywood media, political news, and sports and entertainment coverage.

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In a time of severe economic pressure to get the most bang for the buck, it is very satisfying that “China Inside Out” is an extremely cost-effective project. The programs can reach an audience of millions of viewers in the US for a very modest outlay. Part of the beauty of licensing and translating these programs for international broadcast is that the costs of translation and presentation are minimal, compared to creating original productions. While the programming may not be commercially viable, eschewing the faster-bigger-louder formulation of popular television, there is a strong interest from noncommercial broadcasters in offering this significant programming to their well-educated and curious audiences. Some programs, such as the hour-long “Preschool China,” may have appeal to commercial networks that showcase outstanding documentaries, such as HBO and Sundance, while LinkTV and a group of PBS stations have already expressed interest in broadcasting the entire series.

Living Earth Television is distinguished from other commercial entities that may import and translate programming by its commitment to locating existing top-quality, professionally produced documentaries in communities around the world, and translating and contextualizing these for broadcast and educational use. Culturally sensitivite translation and presentation are the keys to LETV’s work. Programs are translated collaboratively by a team consisting of native speakers of both the language of the production and the language of the target audience. Introductions to contextualize the programs for the intended audience are developed with the assistance of academic specialists in the culture of the country of origin.

Living Earth Television will gladly address any questions and concerns; please feel free to contact us.