The 2025 Chinese drama “Living the Land” (生息之地 Shēngxī zhī dì) takes on the issue of rural traditions against the one-child policy in the 1990s from the perspective of a 10-year-old boy. There’s tragedy here, but nothing grim or gruesome. The feeling of this film is more contemplative. 

The film begins in a wheat field at a grave site. Bones are being dug up to be returned to another site. We see all this through the eyes of  Xu Chuang (Wang Shang) who is being raised by his maternal grandmother (Zhang Yanrong) and young attractive aunt Xiuying (Zhang Chuwen) while his parents are off in the city working and can only afford to return once or twice a year.

In the village, the wheat farmers work together, and use their wheat to pay for school tuitions and taxes. They live away from telephones, automobiles and other modern equipment. They know nothing about politics and wars. Their worries are more basic. Life and death can be simple as using the wrong calendar. The villagers run on the traditional lunar calendar. The rest of the world runs on the Gregorian calendar. That small clash between the traditional culture and the new China turns out to be fatal.

Unlike his relatives, Chuang can read and he gets books from his teacher to take home. He has a mentally disabled cousin Jihua (Zhou Haotian) that he spends time with, through which we witness both country kindness and cruelty. We learn there are ways that the one-child policy was circumvented–not everyone could or would pay the penalty tax. Yet still penalties must be paid.

In contrast to the funerals, there is also a wedding that sadly not a happy occasion but a pragmatic part of protecting family. Yet we don’t know enough to consider if the thwarted romance would have been a better option. Instead, we left wistfully wondering what could have been and how this might twist future family relationships.

Director/screenwriter Huo Meng sets a slow pace. There’s a rhythm, but one measured by the seasons of the world and life, punctuated by the weather and human deeds. You’ll have to leave the hustle of the city and surrender to a life that cinematographer Guo Daming records with a slight sense of nostalgia. A life before television, before motorized tractors were the norm, before the world grew smaller with the instantaneousness of the Internet. This is the kind of film to watch when you’re in the mood for rumination.

“Living the Land” had its world premiere at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival on 14 February 2025 and director Huo Meng won the Silver Bear for Best Director. “Living the Land” was one of the films screened at AFI FEST 2025 (23 October 2025).