Every Seventh Person

A Documentary Film by Elke Groen and Ina Ivanceanu

Every seventh person in the world is a Chinese farmer. This gave the title for a feature-length documentary film that came about in close cooperation with the research project SUCCESS.
Between 2002 and 2005 the filmmakers Elke Groen and Ina Ivanceanu carried out numerous interviews in three Chinese villages and documented everyday life — without any censorship whatsoever.
At the same time the inhabitants of the villages shot their own short films about their life and their dreams — messages that have become part of Every Seventh Person.
The result is an exceptional documentary film about a widely unknown China — a travel into controversial life worlds between socialism and market economy and an essay about the villages as testing grounds for democracy and self-determination.

In Every Seventh Person, farmers and factory workers, migrant workers and village leaders, women and men, children and old people, winners and losers tell their stories and share their dreams with the viewer. The film portrays three villages that are very different from each other and can yet be seen as exemplary for rural China. Beisuzha in the province of Hebei is a model village of communist organisation and planning. The village committee, elected by all the inhabitants determines the fair allocation of arable land, schooling and the use of cash resources — and controls family planning. The minority village of San Yuan, located in the Himalayan foothills, has only been accessible by surfaced road since 2003.
An entrepreneur is planning a deer park for tourists for which the community has sacrificed a lot of arable land. Here the inhabitants speak Naxi and revive their almost-forgotten writing and their ancient water gods. Finally, in Jiangjiazhai (province of Shaannxi in central China) »Socialism with a Chinese face« — i.e. the Chinese form of capitalism — determines events. The inhabitants are either casual labour in faraway cities or build up micro-enterprises.