Dark Documentary on China Underbelly Chills Cannes

AFP ran this article on 24 May 2009:

Dark documentary on China underbelly chills Cannes
By Claire Rosemberg

CANNES, France (AFP) - At a festival chock-full of cinematic violence, a documentary by a young Chinese film-maker brought more darkness to Cannes with a harrowing portrayal of life in Beijing's underbelly.

"I'm relating reality as it is in China today," director Zhao Liang told AFP in an interview.

His "Petition" documents the plight of China's judicial "petitioners" -- people from across the land who gather in Beijing in the hope of righting legal wrongs suffered back home.

"These people are sacrificing themselves for China," said Zhao, whose work is one of 15 feature-length films selected for screening by the festival but showing out-of-competition for the Palme d'Or award.

"There is a lot of corruption. China's problem today is that justice is not independent," he said.

Often from the most disadvantaged social classes, the petitioners come to Beijing's Complaints Office of the Supreme People's Court after failing to win cases lodged at local or regional level.

Filmed over a decade in alleyways and makeshift huts near the city's South railway station -- a teeming area once known as "Petitioners' City" -- the two-hour documentary focuses on the dire living conditions of the petitioners and their often hopeless quests for judicial redress.

Living off waste, sleeping rough, and locked in relentless red tape, they also face bands of thug "retrievers" sent by local authorities to shoo them home -- which often means jail or a mental hospital.

A 2006 scene shows a group recovering a jaw, a severed hand and other body parts left on a railway track where an old woman was cut down by a passing train while trying to escape retrievers.

The tale of a mother and daughter is told over a decade, from when the girl is 12 to her decision at adulthood to leave a life on the streets and marry. During her fight for justice, the mother spent five years locked up, including months drugged in psychiatric wards.

"Although we are on the road to openness, there is a still a lot to do in China," Zhao said. "This film aims to inform people about the petitioners."

"I see myself as a doctor looking at an ill person," Zhao said. "It is urgent to cure this sickness and look after the ill."

The 38-year-old film-maker said that because "Petition" was a documentary, he did not need to request an official permit in order to film nor did he require official authorisation to show the work at Cannes.

The film is scheduled to screen at a Chinese independent film festival this month. "There is space in China nowadays for this sort of film to be shown," he said.

The "Petitioners" area was razed ahead of the 2008 Olympics, when Zhao's film stops, to make way for the new South Station, Asia's largest rail terminal. But the petitioners are still in Beijing, pushed further away deep into the suburbs.

Peppered with their criticism of party officials and calls for pro-democratic revolt, Zhao said: "I can't say I agree with the petitioners in the film. I have merely related reality."

"I'm interested in the humanity of these people," he added. "In China networks are essential and these people can't pull strings."

"These people are sacrificing themselves for the good of China. I would never become a petitioner myself. I don't have sympathy for them but I do have respect."