Synopsis

The documentary film, The Road, reveals the status of 22 students who study in a private village school in Hunan Province. Through in-depth interviews, the inner world of these “left-behind children” who lack parental love is explored. We hope that through this film to elicit a response from our society. This documentary film also reveals problems with rural education.

Due to its dilapidated teaching buildings, the only primary school in Guang’an Village had to move to town and be merged with a primary school in 2002. This was in response to government policy, which was to merge more students and schools together. But this caused a series of problems for Guang’an Village. Take traffic as an example: some kids were too young to walk the long distance to school with their parents. Meanwhile, the vast majority of these pupils’ parents worked outside the village, leaving their grandparents farming the land at home. But for their children’s future, at least one grandparent from the family had to rent an apartment in the town to accompany these kids while they studied. This was an additional expense, that could become a heavy burden on families. In these circumstances, the village decided to rebuild a private school, which has enrolled a total of 22 students in Grade One…….