Nobody’s child

Filmmaker: Chao Gan

When Bing’s parents divorced, the three family members went their separate ways. But as both parents embark on different relationships – his father with his first girlfriend, whom he first met during the Cultural Revolution, and his mother with her boss – Bing tries through personal investigation to figure out what was to blame for the failure of their marriage.

Alongside his father and his father’s girlfriend, he decides to embark on a journey to Heihe in northern China. During the journey he gains a better understanding of his parent’s very different lives and discovers a period in history that played a crucial part in the tragedy of their marriage.

In 1969, Bing’s father was sucked into the Intellectual Youth political movement. He was 16 years old and barely out of school when he was sent to Heihe – far away from his home in Shanghai. When he returned, penniless, 10 years later, he met Bing’s mother, the daughter of a wealthy family.

Filmmaker Chao Gan looks at how the experiences of a past era are posing a challenge to Chinese families today.