This extraordinary documentary follows one family, the Zhengs, for two years–two exhausting holiday journeys and the time surrounding them. The Zhengs, like millions of other Chinese, have left their traditional, rural homes for the grinding struggle of life in industrial cities. When we first meet the parents, they have been unable even to secure tickets for their multi-day trip.

Yet when they do, the tickets still won’t assure them a place on the unreliable and overfull trains. The tense and harrowing scenes at the train station are indelible chapters in the story, as the camera crew and the viewer are swept up in the dangerous human tide. This ordeal is plainly the crucial allegory of the film: “If the family can’t be together for the New Year’s holiday,” Mr. Zheng says, “life would be pointless.” The astonishing power of Last Train Home, Lixin Fan’s award-winning debut feature documentary, is the ability to find the details of the individual that represent the condition of the society.

Friday, August 13
Rooftop Films, Hot Docs, Zeitgeist Films Present
Venue: On the roof of the Old American Can Factory, 232 3rd Street, Gowanus Brooklyn.
8:00pm: Doors Open
8:30pm: Live music by Mountain Man
9:00pm: Films
10:30pm: After party with complimentary drinks courtesy of Radeberger Pilsner