North American Premiere
Huo Meng’s film folds a grand historical reckoning into the story of one rural Chinese family. The year is 1991, and changes are coming for the Li clan: A new wave of modernization looms over their village, which has long sustained itself through wheat farming. Our protagonist is Chuang (Wang Sheng), a gifted young boy who loves his great-grandmother (Zhang Yanrong), aunt (Zheng Chuwen), and disabled cousin (Zhu Haotian). Promised advancement but faced with cruelty and prejudice, each generation of the Li family must reckon with the cost of reforming their traditional way of life.
As Living the Land progresses, its thematic reach expands and the film grows in dramatic force, inviting comparison with the works of Chinese masters Jia Zhangke and Tian Zhuangzhuang, as well as with John Ford’s historical family saga How Green Was My Valley. Visually rich, finely detailed, and large in ambition, this is a powerfully assertive work.
Silver Bear for Best Director, Berlinale 2025
Media Partner
Wang Shang, Zhang Yanrong, Zhang Chuwen
China
2025
In Mandarin with English subtitles
Animal cruelty
At International Village
At Fifth Avenue
Book Tickets
Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Xu Chunping, Yao Chen
Producer
Zhang Fan
Screenwriter
Huo Meng
Cinematography
Guo Daming
Editor
Huo Meng
Original Music
Wan Jianguo
Huo Meng
Huo Meng was born in 1984 in Taikang, Henan Province, China. Starting out as a law student at the Communication University of China, he later embarked on a master’s degree in cinema at the same institution. In 2018, he released his first fiction feature, Crossing the Border – Zhaoguan, which won the Pingyao International Film Festival Fei Mu Award for Best Director and the Fajr International Film Festival Best Asian Director award. The film also received a Best Director nomination at the Golden Rooster Film Festival.
Filmography: Crossing the Border – Zhaoguan (2018)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
All That's Left of You
Jordan's submission for the Academy Awards, All That's Left of You makes the most of its epic format to chronicle seven decades of Palestinian history while tracking the psychological impact of cycles of exile and oppression on three generations.
Laura Crema Sings Lorenz Hart
For this unique show, leading jazz vocalist Laura Crema has put together a set of some of Lorenz Hart's most memorable songs. Afterwards, enjoy Ethan Hawke's portrait of the legendary lyricist in Richard Linklater's new movie, Blue Moon.
Islands
In this sly, engrossing mystery, a dissolute English tennis coach in a Canary Islands holiday resort falls under suspicion when the husband of a beautiful guest disappears after a night of heavy drinking...
One Battle After Another
PT Anderson's breathless satire is the best political action movie of 2025, a defiantly anti-MAGA rallying cry featuring a six pack of crackerjack performances. They'll still be talking about this one 50 years from now.
The Mother and the Bear
Johnny Ma’s film stars Kim Ho-jung as a Korean woman who flies to Winnipeg when her immigrant daughter is hospitalized there. This crowd-pleaser plays up cultural differences to hilarious effect and offers a touching take on mother-daughter tension.
L'Étranger
Recreating 1940s Algeria in vivid, high contrast black and white cinematography, L'Etranger is erotic, enigmatic and brutal in equal measures, a masterful screen version of Albert Camus's insoluble classic of existential alienation.