Last Train Home

Migration in China

Every spring, China's cities are plunged into chaos as 130 million migrant workers journey to their home villages for the New Year's holiday. This mass exodus is the world's largest human migration--an epic spectacle that reveals a country tragically caught between its rural past and industrial future.

LAST TRAIN HOME follows one couple who have embarked on this annual trek for almost two decades. Like so many of China's rural poor, Zhang Changhua and Chen Suqin left behind their two infant children for grueling factory jobs. Their daughter Qin--now a restless and rebellious teenager--both bitterly resents their absence and longs for her own freedom away from school, much to the utter devastation of her parents.

Emotionally engaging and starkly beautiful, the film is an intimate observation of one fractured family, shedding light on the human cost of China's ascendance as an economic superpower.

Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema - Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival. Winner of Best Documentary at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards.