Return to Dust

In a small, rural village in Gaotai, a timid, chronically ill woman (Hai Qing) and an unassuming farmer (Wu Renlin) are pushed into an arranged marriage despite their middle age. The couple’s bond deepens over shared farm work but their life is thrown into peril when the local government begins incentivizing landowners to demolish their homes and uproot their families to the city. Sensitively acted and meticulously shot over the course of a year, this humanist triumph documents the country’s rapid urbanization and cements its director as one of the leading figures in Chinese independent cinema.