Last Train Home - a Big Hit

“LAST TRAIN HOME”

Every spring, China’s cities are plunged into chaos, as all at once, a tidal wave of people attempt to return home by train. It is the Chinese New Year. The wave is made up of millions of migrant factory workers. The homes they seek are the rural villages and families they left behind to seek work in the booming coastal cities. It is an epic spectacle that tells us much about China, a country discarding traditional ways as it hurtles towards modernity and global economic dominance.

A feature documentary by Lixin Fan

WINNER, Best Feature: IDFA International Documentary Festival Amsterdam
WINNER, Best Documentary: Whistler Film Festival
WINNER, Best Canadian Film: Rencontres International de Documentaire

Continues its engagement at The Varsity Cinemas

Expands to Silver City Richmond Hill beginning on Friday, March 5

Monday, March 1, 2010: KinoSmith, the independent Canadian distributor is pleased to announce that Lixin Fan’s Last Train Home will open on an additional screen on Friday, March 5, 2010 at the Silver City Richmond Hill.

Lixin Fan’s debut, produced by EyeSteelFilm - Last Train Home - has won the prestigious Feature Documentary competition at the world’s largest documentary film festival, the International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam (IDFA).  As well, Last Train Home took the newly launched Cinématheque québecoise award for Best Film from Québec/Canada at this year’s Recontres internationals du documentaire (RIDM).

Last Train Home tied with Pax Americana (another KinoSmith release) for Best Documentary at the Whistler Film Festival.

Last Train Home, an emotionally engaging and visually beautiful debut film from Chinese-Canadian director Lixin Fan, draws us into the fractured lives of a single migrant family caught up in 130 million Chinese desperate annual migration. Sixteen years ago, the Zhangs abandoned their young children to find work in the city, consoled by the hope that their wages would lift their children into a better life. But in a bitter irony, the Zhangs’ hopes for the future are undone by their very absence. Qin, the child they left behind, has grown into adolescence crippled by a sense of abandonment. In an act of teenage rebellion, she drops out of school. She too will become a migrant worker. The decision is a heartbreaking blow for the parents. In classic cinema verité style, Last Train Home follows the Zhangs’ attempts to change their daughter’s course and repair their ruptured family. Intimate and candid, the film paints a human portrait of the dramatic changes sweeping China. We identify with the Zhangs as they navigate through the stark and difficult choices of a society caught between old ways and new realities. Can they get ahead and still undo some of the damage that has been done to their family?

Last Train Home is produced by EyeSteelFilm is a documentary film and interactive media company dedicated to using cinema as a catalyst for social and political change.