China Blue at the Filmoteca

Next Thursday, 7th of Sept. 2006, Parallel 40 will show China Blue (Filmoteca de Catalunya, 10.00pm), a documentary film by Micha X. Peled, director of documentaries like "Store Wars, When Wal-Mart Comes to Town" (2001), "You, Me, Jerusalem" or "Inside God's Bunker".













Micha Peled shot that documentary clandestinely in a South China factory and explores the lives of workers struggling to balance Western demands with shrinking wages. The film follows the lives of three teenage workers in a blue jeans factory – Jasmine, Lipeng, and Orchid – who like most of the cheap labour pool in China are female and originate from poor, rural areas.

So far, those Western companies criticised for slave-like labour and living conditions in their respective factories use to blame their Chinese subcontractors or the lax, rather non-existing enforcement of labour protection laws by the Chinese authorities. But how much of the guilt is ours, the consumer's? How much are we prepared to pay for a pair of jeans nowadays?

In the words of Jasmine: “Who are the fat, tall people who buy these jeans we make?"