Youth (Spring)

(France/Luxembourg/Netherlands/2023—directed by Wang Bing)  

The latest epic work of observational nonfiction from Wang Bing continues the filmmaker’s chronicle of the economic, social, and personal upheavals happening across a transforming China. Youth (Spring) is a remarkable account of rural migrant workers employed in textile factories in Zhili, a town outside Shanghai.

This film is specifically about the lives of the young, and forcefully and humanely depicts—with its director’s reassuring patience and unassuming formal rigor—the consequences of the country’s rapid growth on the minds and bodies of a new generation of workers. Official Selection, Cannes, New York, and Toronto International Film Festivals. In Mandarin with English subtitles. (218 min.) 

“Wang Bing sits at the pinnacle of the Chinese documentary groundswell.” —Nicolas Rapold, The New York Times