The final film in the Youth trilogy sees migrant workers return to their homes to celebrate and rest.
In Homecoming, the hum of sewing machines stops and the stuffy workshops and dormitories of Zhili make way for workers’ home villages. With music, karaoke nights, laughter, and fireworks, migrant workers return to their families to celebrate the New Year and marriages. But they are only back for a short break. In spring, they will return to Zhili.
Parallel to Youth, Wang Bing made two more works about textile workers in the same area: the feature Bitter Money (2016) and the installation 15 Hours (2017), which was shot in one take. Unlike these projects, which do not focus on any particular age group, Youth, as its title suggests, is focused on young people. As Wang Bing explains, his intention was to explore youth without romanticization or any revolutionary context, with which it was often associated in postwar Chinese art. In his film, young people are primarily economic actors and simultaneously an exploited social group. Wang Bing shows them up close, allowing us to see the world through their eyes, understand their triumphs and defeats, feel their strength and exhaustion, relate to their conflicts and friendships.
Youth (Homecoming) premiered in the main competition of the 81st Venice Film Festival.
The film will be screened in Chinese with Russian subtitles.
Youth (Homecoming)
Director: Wang Bing
France, Netherlands, Luxembourg, 2024. 152 min
18+