High Tech, Low Life follows two of China’s most prominent citizen journalists as they go about reporting issues the mainstream media can’t touch.
This beautiful and insightful documentary tells the story of Tiger Temple, 57, a retired divorcee, and Zola, 26, a vegetable seller, two well-known Chinese citizen journalists. The film shows the two men loading up their bikes with laptops, digital cameras, video cameras and other high tech equipment, turning themselves into “one-man news stations.” The two have different styles, but their goal is the same—to uncover the truth. As Zola says in the beginning of the film: “I live in an environment where all of the news is good news. I think this news is crap. Not all news is good news.” The two men pedal their bicycles throughout small villages and towns of China in search of stories that the mainstream media is forbidden from reporting. Their news gathering completed, they put their photos, video and text on their blogs, giving voice to China’s voiceless.
Recommended by HRIC.
