China’s rapid economic development has left behind vast rural areas still fighting for basic survival needs. A local doctor’s personal quest to bring transformative healthcare to the remote villages of northwest China reveals an intimate portrait of an unobserved rural community. Restoring the Light explores how the doctor and two disabled families–including an inspired young woman, her brave grandmother and an optimistic young boy–retain hope and resilience in the face of enormous social and economic pressures that threaten to unravel their lives.

Restoring the Light is an hour-long documentary about the spirit of resilience and hope of several rural families in China: A young woman who, despite a debilitating bone infection, manages to pursue her dream to attend university and become an artist. Her grandmother, who has lived in a cave dwelling for over sixty years and who still toils in the field even though she has lost her vision to cataracts. A young boy who wants to become a truck driver and maintains optimism in spite of his blindness. And a doctor who gives up his home in order to run a mobile clinic for the underserved.

The film reveals the human stories behind China’s urban-centric economic boom and explores what happens to the millions who are left behind and must struggle for basic survival and inadequate access to healthcare and education. In today’s media, we watch many stories about China’s rise but seldom do we see the struggles of the countryside represented in compassionate detail. This film is more than just a portrait of rural China; it is an exploration of how people maintain hope and resilience while facing tremendous forces of social and economic change.

Restoring the Light trailer

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Director Grace Lee has been filming AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY: THE EVOLUTION OF GRACE LEE BOGGS, a feature documentary about legendary Detroit activist and philosopher Grace Lee Boggs over the past decade. They’re trying to raise funds to complete the film this year. As Grace is now 96, they want her to be part of the film’s release plan. Here’s more about the documentary film:

Grace Lee Boggs has dedicated her life to the next American Revolution. Born to Chinese immigrants in 1915, she earned a PhD in philosophy at age 25 before committing herself to a life of ideas, action, and the promise of change and social justice from within the African-American community. Moving to Detroit in the 1950s and marrying African-American autoworker/activist James Boggs, she saw that Detroit embodied both the failures and possibilities of the American dream, and was thus an enormously fertile place to work. At 96, Grace continues to engage audiences everywhere in a process of re-imagination, conversation and action — reminding us that revolution is not only possible and necessary, but already happening.
Although Grace’s biography is part of our story, this is not a traditional biopic or historical film. This story is about how a visionary thinker and doer grapples with the looming questions confronting humanity and sustains her commitment to that work. The driving narrative transports Grace through the major social movements of the last century — from labor to civil rights, from Black Power to feminism, identity politics and beyond — and shows how she emerged with a philosophy that is almost radical in its simplicity and clarity: revolution is not an act of aggression but an ongoing, evolving series of living conversations. It is about the willingness to shift tactics, reflect upon and embrace contradictions. “Revolution,” Grace says, “is about the ability to change yourself to change the world.”

In a world plagued by seemingly endless wars, environmental disasters, rampant consumerism and economic collapse, people everywhere are asking: How can I make a difference? How do we create meaningful change? And how do we sustain ourselves so we can continue evolving our humanity? American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs explores how a lifetime of thinking, advocating, and grassroots action has culminated in powerful approaches to these elusive questions and how Grace’s ideas are inspiring a new generation of young people and activists to rebuild and revitalize their corner of the world, in Detroit.

You can help fund the film here.

Help fund American Revolutionary documentary about Grace Lee Boggs