Misconception

By the year 2050, at least nine billion people are expected to share our planet. What does this figure bode for the world’s future? Instead of echoing prophesies of doom, offers a surprising, often amusing look at the well-known forecasts for population growth and the realities behind these. Following a cleverly edited prelude, the story starts in Russia and India, where the government is giving out cars to couples who produce children or have themselves sterilized, respectively. Global health professor, statistician and self-proclaimed “possibilist” Hans Rosling puts the population growth figures into perspective in this film that is part essay, part observational documentary, directed by Oscar®-winning director Jessica Yu. Rosling's challenging ideas then form a background to three colorful portraits of people whose everyday lives are determined by family planning policies. In China, a 29-year-old Beijing bachelor raised in the era of a strict one-child policy searches for true love against the odds in a country where single men vastly outnumber women. In Manhattan, a passionate activist lobbies the U.N. to change the discussion from women’s reproductive rights to her deeply personal concerns about abortion and contraception. And in Uganda, a no-nonsense reporter becomes a detective and heroic caretaker of the future as she goes on a quest to investigate the country’s lost children.