Blind Shaft

"Brief, harsh, brutal—and informative—Blind Shaft is the best crime movie now on the screen."—The Nation

From China, Blind Shaft is a gripping psychological drama about profit-mad coal mining in the remote Shanxi province. From China, Blind Shaft at first appears to be a documentary on the brutal conditions of profit-mad coal mining coal mining in the remote Shanxi province. The film soon turns into a gripping psychological drama acted out among desperately poor miners who resort to sabotage, bribery, and murder to escape their brutalizing servitude.

Shot without government permission and banned in China, Blind Shaft won the Berlin Film Festival's top prize. Yet director Li Yang remains an outcast at home for braving to depict his country's unbridled rush towards capitalism. (92 mins.)