Lone Star International Film Festival 2009

In Beijing, the government has established an official Complaints Office where petitioners come from across China in hopes of redress for injustices in their local communities. The Complaints Office however, is organized to force the petitioners to wait years for their cases to be heard, creating a Kafkaesque nightmare for country people stranded in the city and often pursued by “retrievers” sent by their local governments. Zhao Liang began work on this documentary in 1996, often shooting footage with a secret camera. It is both infuriating and moving as it shows the community that comes together in the shantytown known as Petition Village. Zhao’s film was among those pulled by the Chinese government from the 2009 Melbourne International Film Festival. Petition Village was demolished as part of Beijing’s Olympic building program. Charles Dee Mitchell Winner of Best Foreign Language Film Award