Railroad of Hope
Director: Ning Ying
Running Time 52 mins
China 2002
English Subtiitles

Post screening discussion with Director


Every day during August and September, several thousand farm workers leave Sichuan by train for a long trip of more than 3000 km, lasting three days and two nights, towards China’s western autonomous region Xinjiang, where endless cotton fields await harvesting.

For most of them, this is the first time away from their native villages. The film casts a light on the relatively new phenomenon of internal migrations in China, while facilitating Chinese peasants from the poor regions to speak openly about their lives.

Ning Ying studied at the Beijing Film Academy from 1978, simultaneously with students such as Chen Kaige, Li Shoahong and Zhang Yimou. She graduated in 1982.

She attended a course at the Centro Sperimentale de Cinematografia in Rome and was then assistant director on Bernardo Bertolucci’s ‘The Last Emperor’ (1987). Ning Ying returned to Beijing in 1987 and successfully pursued a career as a director and screenwriter.

Her first full length film, 'Someone Happened to Fall in love with me' (1990) is a comedy. She collaborated with her sister Ning Dai on her next work, 'For Fun', the first film of her ‘Beijing Trilogy’. Adapted from a novel about a group of retirees, the film won the director a Young Cinema Gold Prize at the Tokyo Film Festival and a Golden Balloon at Nantes.

The film’s documentary style caught the attention of critics internationally. Ning Ying financed her next project, 'On the Beat', (1995) – second film in the Beijing Trilogy, largely with prize money from international festivals. The film won nine major awards, including the Fipresci Prize and the Grand Prize at the Festival Internazionale Giovanni in Torino. 'I love Beijing' was the last in her Beijing Trilogy. Her most recent documentary Railroad of Hope (2002) has received international acclaim and has been awarded the Grand Prix du Cinema du Reel in Paris.

In parallel to fiction she also became active in the fields of documentary and public service programmes. She has been author of a programme about the city of Turin (Italy), presented on the occasion of the EU Inter-Governmental Conference in 1999, and for Unicef concerning seven urgent social problems in today’s China, such as “HIV/Aids”, “women’s trafficking”, “migrant children”, etc. Her video work about the 12 Asian architects project “Commune by the Great Wall” has been presented at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2002. She is currently completing her new feature film 'Spring Festival'.


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