Auntie Hu's Garden
Directed by Poon Chi Kei
This is a story about love and self-redemption. Ms. Hu, who lives in Chongqing's Shibatie, runs a small, inexpensive hotel and picks up garbage in the commercial district every day. Despite her poverty, Ms. Hu often helps out the hotel's economically disadvantaged residents. In contrast to reality, Ms. Hu's spiritual world is unusually strong, and she has built a garden out of the discarded commercial garbage she collects, a poetic space of her own. She hopes to redeem herself and her depressed son. But in the eyes of her son, Shaobin, the garden is just a pile of garbage for his mother to escape her past. The film began shooting in 2012, and over the course of nearly 10 years, the garden has been used as a clue to document the spiritual world and real life of Ms. Hu and her son, Shaobin.