With the room falling back into darkness, the documentary began with an image of her standing in front of a larger screen, making a PowerPoint presentation. Dressed casually in jeans and a white shirt, she paced back and forth on the screen, talking, holding a pointer in her hand, combining personal narrative, investigative reporting and explanatory observations to explore the causes of the dire air pollution that was plaguing Chinese cities.

The documentary consisted of interviews, charts and scenes from different perspectives, with poor people suffering in a ‘lung cancer village’, environmental scientists complaining about the difficulty of enforcing regulations, the local officials mouthing about the importance of keeping up production in spite of the PM 2.5 level over ten times higher than the international standards …

Chen pressed the button of a mini recorder hidden in his trouser pocket. A lot of research had been done for the documentary and it was out of the question for him to remember the specific details, let alone to digest them. He knew he had to review some of them later.

In the shifting scenes of the movie, Shanshan was seen consulting scientists for explanations about why tiny particles in the ever-worsening air could prove to be particularly lethal; comforting a little Shanxi girl who said while sobbing that she had not seen a real star, nor white clouds, nor blue sky for more than half a year; conducting the research with equipment that effectively filtered out the air particles of a small room into a large bowl of pitch black water.

The movie eloquently demonstrated how China had been losing its ‘battle against air pollution’, though not jumping to any political conclusion. The targets of its criticism included the GDP-oriented economical practices, making examples of such state-owned mega companies as Zhonghua Petroleum Company, Petro Shengzhou, and National Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, all of them shown ruthlessly tramping the environmental regulations in their devil-may-care production. In the background, some government officials were shown collaborating with the companies, making adamant refusals to shut down those factories or productions, unable or unwilling to act in any responsible way.

Shanshan spoke in the scenes in a gentle manner, once or twice smoothing her hair with her slender hand, her silhouette seemingly too slim against those heavy contents, yet standing there full of strength, a radiance shining from her visionary passion.

The lights returned to the meeting room. She moved back to the lectern, arranging a folder as the film ended.

A short silence ensued. It was an extraordinarily eloquent, enlightening, educational and convincing documentary from its multi-perspectives and vivid details. She stood waiting for comments from the audience.

It was then that Chen came to the full realization why some high-ups, including Comrade Zhao, were so concerned about the documentary. While the film refrained from pointing fingers, an implied message was perceivable: the Party government was held ultimately responsible for the environmental disaster.

‘Any questions or suggestions,’ she said.

‘How did you manage to do the interview with Kang, the head of Zhonghua Petroleum Company?’ a white-haired man questioned. ‘Did he actually allow you to record it?’