Jin scowls into the camera when her sister – the filmmaker – asks about her earliest memories. No wonder: these memories are anything but pleasant. Jin was born in the 1990s, during China’s one-child policy. It was normal then for unborn girls to be aborted – right up to the last month of a pregnancy, because boys were preferred. Living babies were also ruthlessly dumped in the garbage, or in the woods. Jin survived for a week in a box on the streets.
The story of this rebellious fighter unspools before the camera’s gaze, which follows her everywhere over several years. Jin is now a mother herself, struggling with her heritage. Wang Qiong interviews her parents, who are wracked by feelings of guilt, and her uncle, who back then enforced birth control policy for the government. This intimate, highly personal document is both a loving, painfully honest portrait of a family and an attempt to expose a traumatic period in China, so that the deep wounds this has left may finally start to heal.
Trailer
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Interview
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Film details
- Country of production
- USA
- Year
- 2021
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2021
- Length
- 174"
- Medium/Format
- DCP
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