Directed by Huang Ji • 2012 • China
Starring Yao Honggui

The first entry in what is now a trilogy (with THE FOOLISH BIRD and STONEWALLING) chronicling the experiences of China’s left-behind children—kids who remain in the countryside while one or both of their parents depart for the city to work—director Huang Ji’s remarkable feature debut announced the arrival of one of the most vital voices in contemporary Chinese cinema. Set in the director’s own home village in Hunan Province, this searingly personal coming-of-age portrait observes, in images at once precise and poetic, the experiences of one such girl, fourteen-year-old Honggui (Yao Honggui), as she grapples with the trauma of sexual assault, her story a haunting snapshot of life on the margins of China’s economic expansion.