Red Dust

Country: China

Director: Karin Mak

Runtime: 00:20:25

Category: all shorts

Short Synopsis: Poisoned by the carcinogen cadmium in the battery factories where they worked, Ren and her comrades engage in a desperate struggle for justice. RED DUST captures rural and urban poverty and the risks involved in speaking up in China. In face of daunting obstacles that affect their work, health, and future, the women persevere.

Detailed Synopsis: Red cadmium dust drifted freely in China's nickel-cadmium battery factories owned and operated by GP Batteries (GP), one of the world's top battery manufacturers. Ren, a migrant worker originally from Sichuan, worked for over seven years in the factory inhaling toxic dust daily. She now suffers from frequent headaches and breathing difficulties. If untreated, the cadmium poisons the body, leading to kidney failure, cancer, and even death.RED DUST tells an unexamined side of China's economic development: the resistance, courage, and hope of workers battling occupational disease, demanding justice from the local government and global capital. Chinese migrant workers are deemed disposable by factory owners and are stereotypically viewed as quiet and passive victims. However, Ren and other GP workers (Min, Fu, and Wu) fight back. Labor issues are very sensitive in China, and workers who publicly discuss their struggles do so at great risk. The audience discovers along with the filmmaker, a Chinese American, the horrors of the global assembly line.This documentary is about women who are the engine of the global economy. Ren, Min, Fu, and Wu's experiences are universal to workers on the margins around the world, where poverty, migration, and workplace hazards are common realities.