Featured Documentary: "Last Train Home" by Lixin Fan

Documentary Production and Distribution News

Featured Documentary: "Last Train Home" by Lixin Fan

By Staff
posted Oct 13, 2010, 12:17

Featured Documentary:

"Last Train Home" by Lixin Fan

Every spring, China’s cities are plunged into chaos, as all at once, a tidal wave of humanity attempts to return home by train. It is the Chinese New Year. The wave is made up of millions of migrant factory workers. The homes they seek are the rural villages and families they left behind to seek work in the booming coastal cities. It is an epic spectacle that tells us much about China, a country discarding traditional ways as it hurtles towards modernity and global economic dominance.

Last Train Home, an emotionally engaging and visually beautiful debut film from Chinese-Canadian director Lixin Fan, draws us into the fractured lives of a single migrant family caught up in this desperate annual migration. Sixteen years ago, the Zhangs abandoned their young children to find work in the city, consoled by the hope that their wages would lift their children into a better life. But in a bitter irony, the Zhangs’ hopes for the future are undone by their very absence. Qin, the child they left behind, has grown into adolescence crippled by a sense of abandonment. In an act of teenage rebellion, she drops out of school. She too will become a migrant worker. The decision is a heartbreaking blow for the parents. In classic cinema verité style, Last Train Home follows the Zhangs’ attempts to change their daughter’s course and repair their ruptured family. Intimate and candid, the film paints a human portrait of the dramatic changes sweeping China. We identify with the Zhangs as they navigate through the stark and difficult choices of a society caught between old ways and new realities. Can they get ahead and still undo some of the damage that has been done to their family?

About the Filmmaker

Lixin Fan was born in China, growing up as his country was modernizing and rapidly integrating with the world. Starting off as a journalist with the national television broadcaster CCTV, he traveled the country and experienced first hand the inequality caused by China’s rapid economic expansion. This inspired him to become a documentary filmmaker with a focus on social issues.

Lixin’s debut feature documentary LAST TRAIN HOME is the winner of Joris Ivens Award at IDFA 2009. The film deals with the world’s largest human migration by millions of factory workers every year during the Chinese New Year. LAST TRAIN HOME is selected in world documentary competition at Sundance Film Festival 2010 and won the top prize at RIDM (Montreal) and the Whistler International Film Festival.

In 2006, Lixin worked as associate producer/soundman on the acclaimed feature documentary UP THE YANGTZE, a film about the world’s largest hydroelectric project, the Three Gorges Dam. The film played the Sundance Film Festival in 2008, won the Genie award as Canada’s top documentary feature, and was nominated for an Indie Spirit Award.

In 2003, he edited the Peabody and Grierson award-wining documentary TO LIVE IS BETTER THAN TO DIE. The film, recognized as one of the most shocking documentary on the topic, revealed China’s AIDS epidemic and was featured in the Sundance Film Festival and was broadcasted on HBO, BBC, CBC and PBS.

Visit the "Last Train Home" official movie site for news and upcoming screenings.

Resources:

http://zeitgeistfilms.com/lasttrainhome/

http://www.eyesteelfilm.com/