Club Screening: China’s Forgotten Daughters

China’s one-child policy has taken a toll on thousands of households and millions of individuals since its implementation in 1979. Amplified by gender bias and poverty, penalties imposed by the policy were reason enough for families to give up their daughters in hope of having sons, leaving thousands of baby girls without homes. Now, these abandoned daughters are searching for their long-lost parents, over decades and across provinces. China’s Forgotten Daughters tells the story of one lost daughter’s impassioned search for her birth family, and the human cost of the one-child policy that has lasted for generations.

Vincent Du is a Beijing-based film director and producer. As director and/or cinematographer, he has made four documentaries for Al Jazeera English. He has also directed and produced documentaries for NHK World, Channel News Asia, and China’s Central Television. Mr. Du completed two Master degrees in Journalism and Screen Documentary at the University of Hong Kong and Goldsmiths, University of London respectively. He now teaches documentary and fiction film production at Journalism School of Tianjin Normal University.

Meng Han is a Beijing-based filmmaker and photographer. She has worked as a photojournalist in China for 11 years. Her photo essay, Chinese Adoptees at Home in America, was published in The New York Times and South China Morning Post. In 2014 Meng received the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship, a leadership development program sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.