The Gardener and The Dictator
Director
Hui WangProducers
Jun Zhang Hui Wang- Release Date 2025
- Running Time 98 minutes
- Closed Captions Yes
- Availability Worldwide except Africa
- Prix habituel
- $350.00
- Prix habituel
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- Prix soldé
- $350.00
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Set in Wuhan, a metropolis of more than 12 million that became infamous as the first city hit by COVID-19, "THE GARDENER AND THE DICTATOR" offers a portal back to life long before the pandemic. A loving portrait of Xianzhuang Kuai and Zhongxian Wang, the filmmaker’s elderly grandparents, the film unfolds through their daily lives as they work together to overcome physical and emotional challenges. With incredible intimacy and honesty, they share shocking and inspiring accounts of their experiences during the brutal Japanese occupation and World War II, the Cultural Revolution, and the decades of political and cultural upheaval that followed.
A largely voiceless generation, this remarkable duo revisit both painful and joyous memories, many of which had been buried until the introduction of a video camera as a conduit for these testimonies. Stark contrast between their quiet home life, turbulent early experiences, and the fast-changing urban environment around them creates a nuanced reflection of the incredible pace of societal change around them.
In a time where China and “the West” are more mired in conflict and distrust than ever, "THE GARDENER AND THE DICTATOR" is both a profoundly intimate and quirky love story and a nuanced and insightful reflection of the last century of China’s tumultuous history.
Director: Hui Wang
Producers: Jun Zhang, Hui Wang
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
My overarching intent as a documentary filmmaker is to give voice to the marginalized and to explore the evolution of identities in response to changing social contexts. Born and raised in Wuhan, I immigrated as an adult to Canada in 2001, a life-altering decision that has fostered a unique perspective that I draw on to produce deep and nuanced documentary storytelling. My ultimate goal as an artist is to develop a body of work that explores contemporary and historical issues in China with international relevance and resonance from a simultaneously insider and outsider perspective.
Revealing the tragic consequences of modernization, my debut feature-length documentary "LAST HARVEST" (2015) tells the heart-breaking story of an elderly Chinese farming couple forced to relocate by the government due to a massive infrastructure project.
Moving in a more personal direction, "THE GARDENER AND THE DICTATOR" documents the final years and histories of my paternal grandparents, remarkable individuals who lived into their nineties and, tragically, passed away before the film could be completed. It is an archival film in the sense that all the footage was shot between 2010-2013 when I was in China filming my first documentary "LAST HARVEST".
From my grandfather’s shameful past as a collaborator under the Japanese occupation to my grandmother's imprisonment and being tortured at the hands of the same occupiers, my grandparents experienced firsthand the incredible tumult of China in the 20th century. Theirs was a truly stranger-than-fiction love story — in fact, she was originally married to his best friend! — and this will be a film that brings both laughter and tears to audiences around the world.
Hui Wang
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