"BEIJING — The artist and filmmaker Zhao Liang has shed light on some of the darkest corners of Chinese society, filming in locations as obscure as a shantytown here known as the 'petitioners’ village' and a military police office on the North Korean border.
But for his latest project, the director has focused his lens on a more visible social issue in China — so much more visible that he first spotted it while studying a satellite map.
'I knew I wanted to make a film about the environment, so in 2011, I spent about a year driving around China to see what was out there,' Mr. Zhao said in an interview in his studio here. 'When I was in Inner Mongolia, I was looking at the map and this area was black. I couldn’t see it very clearly, because there was all this thick smog from the coal mines.'"
Amy Qin reports for the New York Times December 28, 2015.
As China Hungers for Coal, ‘Behemoth’ Studies the Ravages at the Source
Source: NY Times, 12/30/2015