‘The Iron Ministry - J.P. Sniadecki’

Filmed over three years on China’s railways, The Iron Ministry traces the vast interiors of a country on the move: flesh and metal, clangs and squeals, light and dark, language and gesture. Fragments of rail journeys come together into one, capturing the thrills and anxieties of social and technological transformation. 

J.P. Sniadecki is a filmmaker, anthropologist, and professor of documentary media at Northwestern University in Chicago. His films, which include Demolition / Chaiqian (2008), Foreign Parts (with Verena Paravel, 2010), People’s Park (with Libbie Cohn, 2012), Yumen (with Huang Xiang and Xu Ruotao, 2013) and The Iron Ministry (2014), have won many awards at festivals around the world.