Petition

Petition – The Court of the Complainants
Zhao Liang
China/Switzerland/UK/France/Belgium/Finland, 2009, 124’

AWARDS and FESTIVALS
Official Selection, Cannes Festival Film, 2009

PRESS QUOTE
“Even Franz Kafka would find it hard to credit the systemic injustice denounced in Petition, an angry and harrowing investigation by Chinese documentary maker and artist Zhao Liang.” ~Jonathan Romney, Screen Daily

“Documentary maker Zhao Liang's harrowing take on the lives of those cast aside by China's economic miracle caused a stir in Cannes this year and brought attention to bear on a remarkable new talent from China.” ~ Clifford Coonan, Variety

SYNOPSIS
“Petition – The Court of the Complainants”, directed by Zhao Liang, is a unique testimony about China today. Since 1996 Zhao Liang has filmed the “petitioners”, who come from all over China to make complaints in Beijing about abuses and injustices committed by the local authorities. Gathered near the complaints offices, around the southern railway station of Beijing, living in most cases in makeshift shelters, the complainants wait for months or years to obtain justice. Peasants thrown off their land, workers from factories which have gone into liquidation, small homeowners who have seen their houses demolished but received no compensation..., all types of cases are represented. Faced with the most brutal intimidation from the local authorities, the complainants, who stubbornly continue despite everything, find that their hopes are often in vain. Zhao Liang has followed several of them, particularly a mother and her daughter, whose full story we follow over ten years. A film shot right up to the start of the Olympic Games in direct contact with reality, showing the persistent contradictions of China in the midst of powerful economic expansion.