''The Dying Rooms'' is a 1995

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

about Chinese state orphanages. It was directed by

Kate Blewett Kate Blewett is a documentary film-maker in the United Kingdom. She is best known for her documentaries on human rights abuses, such as ''The Dying Rooms'' and ''Bulgaria's Abandoned Children''. Life Kate Blewett grew up in Hong Kong, Malay ...

and Brian Woods and produced by Lauderdale Productions. It first aired on

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

in the United Kingdom and in 1996, was aired on

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. A follow-up film, ''Return to the Dying Room''s, was released in 1996. In 1996, the film won a

Peabody Award The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...

. It also won a

News & Documentary Emmy Award The News & Documentary Emmy Awards, or News & Documentary Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the National Academy of Television Arts and Scien ...

Synopsis

In the film, Blewett and others travel to Mainland China to visit orphanages that housed children that were abandoned as a result of the "

one-child policy The term one-child policy () refers to a population planning initiative in China implemented between 1980 and 2015 to curb the country's population growth by restricting many families to a single child. That initiative was part of a much bro ...

". The filmmakers stated that unwanted female and disabled children were left to die of neglect, which would enable the child's parents to have another child. While filming, the crew used hidden cameras to collect footage and Blewett used a false name while visiting the orphanages.

Reception

After its release, the Mainland Chinese government repudiated the documentary's claims, stating that Blewett fabricated the claims in the documentary. A rebuttal to the documentary, ''The Dying Rooms: A Patchwork of Lies,'' was also filmed. The documentary was also criticized by Irish charity Health Action Overseas. Two Irish aid coordinators for the charity traveled to China to visit the orphanages and reported that the claims in both ''The Dying Rooms'' and ''Return to the Dying Rooms'' were "wholly exaggerated, and almost completely without substance". In

Patrick Tyler Patrick E. Tyler is an author and formerly chief correspondent for ''The New York Times''.CORRESPONDENT BIOGRAPHY. https://www.nytimes.com/ref/readersopinions/patrick-tyler-bio.html Readers' Opinions ''Accessed on April 25, 2008'' He is the au ...

's review of Blewett's film, the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' stated that "Compelling images of neglect were captured on tape at this orphanage, and the rebuttal offered by the Government did not succeed in addressing the poor condition of the infants found on the day of the film crew's visit." Walter Goodman also reviewed the film for the paper, stating that "Kate Blewett, Brian Woods and Peter Hugh have not made a balanced or polished documentary. But more important, they have raised international concern over the fate of the children glimpsed here, some of whom have already joined countless others in unmarked graves."

References

External links

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''The Dying Rooms & Return to the Dying Rooms''
at True Vision Child’s Room 1995 films British television documentaries British documentary films Documentary films about China Documentary films about child abuse Peabody Award-winning broadcasts Orphanages in China Documentary films about orphanages 1995 documentary films 1990s English-language films 1990s British films {{documentary-tv-film-stub