China backs niche films about minority groups in hope of easing ethnic tensions

In the upcoming film Deegide, a Mongolian woman herder struggles to keep her family and their sheep alive as a spring snowstorm descends upon the plains, threatening them with starvation. She gets no help from her husband, a depressive alcoholic who is lost without the horses and lush meadows his father knew. 

The film explores the will to life against a nature that is both the sole provider and the greatest danger to survival. The film closes with the titular Deegide taking her husband, who has fallen ill, to a hospital in Beijing. The treatment will bankrupt the family, but as she embarks on the journey, Deegide shows not defeat but tested resolve.

What makes the film unusual from the hundreds of others released on the mainland every year is its backers, the State Ethnic Affairs Commission. Deegide is the first in a series the commission hopes to make about China’s 55 ethnic minority groups that co-exist, not always easily, with the Han majority. 

The films would not be an empty exercise in propaganda nor a broadside against separatist movements, said Zhang Zhiqiang, the head of the project’s management committee. 

“We prefer themes that can support an epic tale and tell a deeply moving story,” Zhang said. “These films can win audience hearts, both at home and overseas.” 

While international viewers may be interested in stories set on the plains of Gansu, or the dusty backstreets of Hotan, luring Han to cinemas at home might prove more difficult.