Last Train Home
NEW DOCS
Each year, 130 million Chinese workers return home to celebrate the New Year holiday, trekking hundreds of miles from industrialized cities to homes in the rural provinces. It’s the world’s largest human migration, and the only time many of these laborers see their families. Director Lixin Fin follows one family, the Zhangs, over two years, observing the heart-wrenching toll the parents’ faraway jobs have taken on family life. Yang and Suquin work in a clothing factory, stitching and serging a better future for their children. When their daughter, Qin, quits school to take a factory job they are devastated, their hopes that education would break the cycle of the family’s poverty dashed. From claustrophobic train cars to the wide expanses of their rural village home, this gorgeous verité film compassionately portrays the personal consequences of a consuming devotion to work, revealing the everyday realities of China’s emergence as a global economic power. SB
Director
Lixin Fan
Producers
Mila Aung-Thwin, Daniel Cross
Editors
Lixin Fan, Mary Stephen
Cinematographer
Lixin Fan
Release Year
2009
Festival Year
2010
Country
Canada
Run Time
87 minutes