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The neighborhood committee
Every urban neighborhood in China has a 居委会. By law it is a self-governing organization of residents, elected by them, though in practice it works closely with the 街道办事处 above it. Its staff know their few thousand residents personally: who lives alone, who has a disability, whose family is in a dispute. In an expropriation, the decisions are made by the district government and its expropriation office, not by the 居委会. But the committee is usually where notices go up, where residents come with questions, and where meetings are held, so it sits between the residents and the process. Residents' views of their committee vary, from close trust to suspicion, and both can be true in one lane. For a documentary, the committee is the first door. 钱主任's conditions — consent forms, blurring, the residents seeing the film first — are standard good practice, and the last one becomes a promise the film will have to keep.