Titre original : "The Other Half of the Sky, Stories of Chinese Businesswomen"  ( « 妇女能顶半边天 »), Patrik Soergel,  2016, documentaire de 80 minutes. Les projections du 10 et 12 avril seront faites en VO mandarin sous-titré français.

Quatre femmes en Chine :Yang Lan est propriétaire d’une des chaînes médias privées leader du marché, Dong Mingzhu est la tenace directrice générale du plus grand fabricant international de climatiseurs, Zhang Lan est la fondatrice d’une ambitieuse chaîne de restaurants de luxe, Zhou Yi fait partie de l’encadrement haut niveau d’une société technologique internationale. Le film donne un éclairage unique à la fois sur l’état d’esprit de  femmes cadres d’aujourd’hui,  et sur une Chine actuelle en pleine transformation.

她们是中国最成功的4位女商人，是经历过中国文革时期的艰辛，又经历了随后的经济快速发展的一代，她们通过自己的努力，奋斗到了父权社会的金字塔顶。这4位中国成功女性当中，杨澜是一家引领潮流的私营媒体公司的老板；董明珠是一位坚韧的女性CEO，领导着全球最大的空调系统制造公司；张兰是一位豪华酒店领域的巨头；周忆是一家美国IT公司的高层管理者。这部影片以尖锐而又独特的视角展现了女性高管们的心态，也展现了现阶段中国正在进行的巨大转型

“Women hold up half the sky”. When I read this famous quote by Mao Zedong for the first time, it immediately captured my attention. Looking into the matter I discovered that ever since its birth, the People’s Republic of China has declared that one of its main aims was to establish equality between men and women. But Chinese women have often been the weakest link in the chain. Yet, the Maoist era made some improvements for women. A sort of echo that is still reverberating around China now. However, this is not a film on the emancipation of Chinese women, but on the change, the transformation underway in the country through the prism of the stories of women who take part, every day, in the new Chinese society and economy taking shape. It is clear that the country is undergoing profound social and human changes, not only an economic transformation. With “The Other Half of the Sky” my intention is to provide a diverse, unusual vision of today’s China, one which reflects its complexity and hybrid condition. I identified and got to know four very different women who profoundly fascinated me: Yang Lan, Dong Mingzhu, Zhang Lan and Zhou Yi. They are in their forties and fifties. They have lived through the last intense 30 thirty years of Chinese history: the cultural revolution, economic reforms and transitions paving the way for the great economic boom. They are all mothers who work long hours, often seven days a week. None of them inherited a fortune. Now they are rich, but they started from humble beginnings and met and overcame countless obstacles.  

Patrik Soergel, august 2016