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Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill
Jon Alpert And Matthew O’neill
American
China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province
Shot in China, May-June 2008
DCTV for HBO
Alpert and O’Neil’s film looks at the devastating aftermath of the 2008 earthquake in central China that killed nearly 70,000 people, many of them children crushed beneath the rubble of collapsed school buildings.
The filmmakers follow a group of grieving parents in the days and weeks following the disaster, as they come to terms with their loss and challenge government officials to explain the shoddy construction of the schools. In a scene which has become famous throughout China, the film shows a local party official on his knees begging the parents to halt their protest march.
The judges described the film as “gripping”. One judge said: “the film-makers took advantage of the chaos in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake to get very close to the parents who had lost children. They stayed with them as their story took unexpected twists and turns.”
Biography
Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill are independent reporters/cinematographers. They work together at the Downtown Community Television Centre, a non-profit community media centre and production company, in New York.
Independently and as a team they have gained access to people, places and stories in countries includin Cuba, Nicaragua, Korea, Afghanistan and Iraq.
They have won numerous awards including 15 Emmys and are previous Rory Peck Awards finalists.
