Montreal filmmaker focuses on China's migrant workers

Montreal filmmaker Lixin Fan set out to expose the underbelly of the Chinese economic miracle in his documentary Last Train Home.

The film, shot over three years in his native China, made its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah and is scheduled to open in Toronto and Vancouver on Friday.

Last Train Home follows the fortunes of a single peasant family, the Zhangs, who labour in the factories of Guangdong province, making cheap goods for the West. Mom and Dad get a chance to travel back to their home village and see their children just once a year, at the Chinese New Year. But in the 16 years they have been living like this, their daughter has grown estranged from them.

Fan said he first witnessed how hard the lives of migrant workers can be when he was a reporter for CCTV in China before immigrating to Canada. Compared to his own comfortable city life, these former peasants have to make huge sacrifices, he said in an interview with CBC's Q cultural affairs show.

"Since China opened up to the world 30 years back, economic growth the development so largely depends on the contribution and sacrifices of millions of migrant workers. It's them who builds the skyscrapers and works on the line making all these exports for the country's economy," Fan said. "I felt I should really make a film to document their lives."

Last Train Home is the debut documentary for Fan, who worked as associate producer on the acclaimed film Up the Yangtze and as editor on To Live Is Better Than To Die, about AIDS in China.Like Up the Yangtze, Last Train Home was produced by Montreal's EyeSteelFilm.

'It's a heartbreaking story in this family and it really resembles the lives of millions.' Filmmaker Lixin Fan

Fan said he met and talked to dozens of workers in Guangzhou factories before deciding to follow the Zhangs.

"When I first met the mother, she told me that they left the village and their daughter 16 years ago and they only got to spend less than a year [with her] in those 16 years. It's a heartbreaking story in this family and it really resembles the lives of millions," he said.

Especially painful is a fight during the New Year holiday that leads to a breach in the family and leads to the daughter leaving school and seeking out a factory job of her own.

"The father and the daughter get into a very intense fight. Those are difficult moments for me as a documentary filmmaker," Yan said. After following the family over three years, and developing a strong relationship with them, he had to stop himself from intervening.

The documentary touches on the rapid changes Chinese peasants have faced in the past 60 years. The grandmother was encouraged to stay on the farm, the parents saw their only opportunity at factories in the city and their daughter has yet another set of expectations.

"That generation they are more bold and courageous to pursue the kind of life they want," he said.

Yan reflected on his shock, in his early years in Canada, at the comfort of the lifestyle here. It made the lack of rights for Chinese workers all the more shocking when he began making the film.

"In the West, we take things for granted, like cheap products I don't think all of us realize what is the real cost behind all these cheap products there is a human cost," Yan said.

There's no easy solution, as China relies on the export of cheap goods to feed its people, he said.

The film was shown at the Guangzhou Documentary Film Festival last year, an emotional experience for Yan. The young audience, many of them students, loved the film.

"One boy said he couldn't stop crying during the screening it was like seeing his own life on screen. His older sister had to give up school and go to work in the factory so he could continue studying," Yan said.

Last Train Home opens Friday in Toronto and Montreal and across the country in March.