Last Train Home

PBS Premiere: Sept. 27, 2011Check the broadcast schedule »

Essential Documentaries About China

Last Train Home director Lixin Fan joins other filmmakers, film curators and writers in recommending more documentaries about China and by Chinese filmmakers.


Five Recommended Documentaries from the Director of 'Last Train Home'

Lixin Fan

Manufactured Landscapes
Jennifer Baichwal, 2006

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Petition
Zhao Liang, 2009

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Up The Yangtze
Yung Chang, 2007

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Disorder
Huang Weikai, 2009

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China from the Inside (TV Series)
Jonathan Lewis, 2006

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Lixin Fan

Lixin Fan is a Canada-based documentary film director for EyeSteelFilm and is the director of the award-winning feature-length documentary Last Train Home, which had its U.S. broadcast premiere on POV in 2011. Find out more about the film at http://www.pbs.org/pov/lasttrainhome.



Five Essential Documentaries About Contemporary Life and Phenomena in China

La Frances Hui (Film Curator, Asia Society)

Beijing Besieged by Waste
WANG Jiuliang, 2011

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Disorder
HUANG Weikai, 2009

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Once Upon a Time Proletarian
GUO Xiaolu, 2009

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Please Vote For Me
CHEN Weijun, 2007

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Umbrella
DU Haibin, 2008

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La Frances Hui

La Frances Hui is film curator of Asia Society in New York. She has curated major filmmaker retrospectives and series featuring cinemas of China, Thailand, Iran, among others. A seasoned interviewer, she has led on-stage conversations with filmmakers including Jia Zhangke, Ang Lee, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and John Woo.



Chinese Documentary Recommendations

Chi-hui Yang (Film Programmer, Cinema Asian America)

Still Life
Jia Zhangke, 2006

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Beijing Bastards
Zhang Yuan, 1993

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Karamay
Xu Xin, 2010

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Chi-hui Yang

Chi-hui Yang is a film programmer, lecturer and writer based in New York. As a guest curator, Yang has presented film and video series at film festivals and events internationally, including the MOMA Documentary Fortnight and the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar ("The Age of Migration"). From 2000-2010, he was the director and programmer of the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival and is currently the programmer of Cinema Asian America, a new on-demand service offered by Comcast and a visiting scholar at New York University's Asian/Pacific/American Institute.



Essential Documentaries from the Digital Generation of Chinese Independent Filmmakers

Kevin Lee (Programmer, dGenerate Films)

1428
Du Haibin, 2009

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Meishi Street
Ou Ning, 2006

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Disorder
Huang Weikai, 2009

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Ghost Town
Zhao Dayong, 2009

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Searching for Lin Zhao's Soul
Hu Jie, 2004

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Kevin Lee

Kevin Lee is vice president of programming and education for dGenerate Films, a distributor of independent films from mainland China, and an editor at the video-on-demand site Fandor. His writing has appeared in Time Out New York, Cinema Scope, Cineaste and Senses of Cinema.



Five Film Recommendations from the Director of 'Up The Yangtze'

Yung Chang

West of the Tracks
Wang Bing, 2003

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Useless
Jia Zhang Ke, 2007

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Circus School
Ke Ding Ding and Guo Jing, 2007

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Petition
Zhao Liang, 2009

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This Happy Life
Jiang Yue, 2005

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Yung Chang

Yung Chang is the director of the award-winning documentary, Up The Yangtze, which was broadcast on POV in 2008. Chang is currently in post-production on China Heavyweight, a feature documentary about Chinese country-side boys and girls in the up-and-coming world of amateur and professional boxing. More information at http://yungfilms.ca.



Opening the Aperture on Human Rights in China

Sharon Hom (Executive Director, Human Rights in China)

Last Train Home
Lixin Fan, 2009

China in the Red
Sue Williams, 2003

Portraits of Loss and the Quest for Justice
Tiananmen Mothers, 2009

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China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province
Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill, 2009

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Blind Shaft
Li Yang, 2003

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Sharon Hom

Sharon Hom is the executive director of Human Rights in China and a professor of law emerita at the City University of New York School of Law. Hom has taught law for 18 years, including training judges, lawyers and law teachers at eight law schools in China over a 14-year period in the 1980s and 1990s. Human Rights in China, a nongovernmental organization based in New York and Hong Kong, supports those pressing for democratic reforms and social justice in China.



Five Film Recommendations from the Director of 'China Blue'

Micha X. Peled

The Gate of Heavenly Peace
Richard Gordon and Carma Hinton, 1995

Up the Yangtze
Yung Chang, 2007

Please Vote For Me
Chen Weijun, 2007

Senior Year
Zhou Hao, 2005

Blind Shaft
Li Yang, 2003

Micha X. Peled

Micha X. Peled emigrated to the United States from Israel by hitchhiking. He is the director of the widely acclaimed documentary China Blue, which aired on PBS, and is founder of the nonprofit documentary production company, Teddy Bear Films. Find out more about China Blue, which takes viewers inside a blue jeans factory in southern China, at http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/chinablue/film.html.



Five Films as Traces of the Great Erasure

David Redmon (Director, Mardi Gras: Made in China)

Ghost Town
Zhao Dayong, 2009

Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks
Wang Bing, 2003

Up the Yangtze
Yung Chang, 2007

Useless
Jia Zhangke, 2007

The Concrete Revolution: The Other Side of the Chinese Miracle
Xiaolu Guo, 2004

David Redmon

David Redmon, with filmmaking partner Ashley Sabin, has produced, directed, edited and photographed five films, including the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize-nominated Mardi Gras: Made in China and Girl Model, which is scheduled to air on POV in 2012. Redmon received a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Albany.



"Sixth Generation" Chinese Films: A Poignant and Entertaining Way for Westerners to Learn About the "Real" China

Michael A. Santoro (Author, China 2020)

The World
Jia Zhang-Ke, 2004

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Pickpocket
Jia Zhang-Ke, 1997

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Platform
Jia Zhang-Ke, 2000

Shanghai Dreams
Wang Xiaoshuai, 2005

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Blind Shaft
Li Yang, 2003

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Michael A. Santoro

Michael A. Santoro is a professor of management and global business at Rutgers Business School and author of China 2020: How Western Business Can — and Should — Influence Social and Political Change in the Coming Decade.