Le Retour des hirondelles

In rural China, not far from the Gobi desert, Ma leads the harsh life of a farm worker on the plot of land that a cooperative rents out to him. He is the last of his siblings to remain unmarried. At his age, that is impossible. Therefore his brothers and sisters decide to arrange a marriage with Guiying, a frail woman that the community considers feebleminded. This marriage suits her family too. Brought together by fate, Ma and Guiying set up their home and open their hearts to each other. - 'I always return to film the land of my birthplace. The two protagonists of my film come from a rural area that its inhabitants have de - - serted. They have all taken the train to the city. My two protagonists have missed that train. It is almost as though two cyclists were trying to catch up with a high-speed train... In China, there are about 80,000 cinema screens, but we rarely see lives similar to those of my two characters. Today, as our local ancestral traditions are disappearing in favour of forced urbanization, I wanted to preserve a trace of these simple rural existences, pay homage to the land that nourished my soul and remains my main source of inspiration.' Li Ruijun