Last Train Home

Year: 2009
Country: CANADA, CHINA
Run Time: 85 minutes

Choosing one's path in life is a universally daunting task. For Qin, this is especially true. Ultimately, she must choose between the path of security her family has laid out for her and the path of independence she longs for. In this observational documentary, we follow the impoverished Zhang family of migrant factory workers and rural farmers in China. Qin's parents sacrifice all in order to provide for their family, only getting to see the children they left behind once a year. The annual occasion is Chinese New Year, a time when 130 million migrant workers attempt to travel home, making it the world's largest human migration. The Zhangs suffer extreme exhaustion as they desperately wait for days among rushing mobs of people who are all hoping to obtain tickets on the LAST TRAIN HOME. Waiting for them is Qin, their teenage daughter who resents them for abandoning her. All the Zhangs want is for their children to study hard so they won't end up like them. But for Qin, school is a cage she is trapped in. Her only way out is to follow in her parents' footsteps and join the crowds of migrant workers in urban China. To her, this is freedom; to her parents, it is utter failure and the dissolution of their hopes for a better life. (In Mandarin with subtitles) – M.M.

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