Director: Qiao Qiao

Synopsis

Against the backdrop of the first World Day for Glaciers (March 21, 2025) and the International Year of Glaciers' Preservation, Saving Lives with Lives, in a concise 12 minutes and 21 seconds, focuses on a glacier rescue effort on China's Qinghai-Tibet Plateau that brings science and people together. The film is the second part of director Qiao Qiao's "Climate Crisis Trilogy". Following the director's camera, it records how researchers and local Tibetan villagers use an innovative method of "covering the glacier with a blanket" (laying special insulating material to reduce solar radiation) to slow glacial melting in an extreme environment. The film closely shows the team's dangerous work in high-altitude glacier areas: scientists monitor the glacier despite the cold and lack of oxygen, Tibetan villagers draw on ecological knowledge passed down for generations to help carry and lay the material, and the film crew risk their own lives to document it. Together the three embody the theme of "saving lives with lives": extending the life of the glacier, a "source of life on Earth", and buying time for the countless living things, humans included, that depend on glacial water. The film aims to share with the world China's practice and commitment in glacier protection and its efforts to respond to climate change and protect glaciers, to convey the idea of harmony between people and nature, and to call on the world to work together against the grave threat climate change poses to glaciers.