LIVING THE LAND
Huo Meng · 2025 · CHINA · 132 min
Get tickets at Film ForumIn his sophomore outing, emerging auteur Huo Meng paints the sweeping story of one family in a wheat-farming community against the backdrop of China’s transformation into a global industrial powerhouse in the early ‘90s. For 10-year-old Chuang, these tectonic forces mean just one thing: his parents must go work in the city, leaving him behind in his maternal family’s village. Drama unfolds naturally from Chuang’s remote and sensitive perspective. Under the charge of brassy great-grandmother Li and young, independent-minded Auntie Xiuying, while keeping company Jihua, his cousin with a disability, Chuang bears witness to seasons of a deeply-rooted but disappearing way of life.