Wild Grass

Directed by Yang Lina

Since the start of the 1990s, a period during which the Chinese government criticised the Western media for biased reporting, Chinese orphanages have strictly controlled access by the media. Because of the difficulty of gaining entrance, it is extremely difficult to know what the situation has been like there for many years. Accompanied by a mother living close to the Qingdao centre, it was thus nevertheless possible for me to film this delicate subject in privileged conditions. It was there that, in 1995, I discovered for the first time dozens of children abandoned by their parents. Over the following 10 years, I came back to visit them every year, and I became their friend. As I listened to them relating their dreams of glory, I filmed their evolution over a decade...