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Last Train Home

"FASCINATING!
Epic in scale, but intimate in focus and unforgettable overall!"
—SALON

Director    Trailer     Credits    Photos    Contacts    Press    Awards

A migrant family embarks on an epic journey home, along with 130 million other hopeful travelers.

About The Director

Lixin Fan was born in China, growing up as his country was modernizing and rapidly integrating with the world. Starting off as a journalist with the national television broadcaster CCTV, he traveled the country and experienced first hand the inequality caused by China’s rapid economic expansion. This inspired him to become a documentary filmmaker with a focus on social issues.

Lixin’€™s debut feature documentary LAST TRAIN HOME is the winner of Joris Ivens Award at IDFA 2009. The film deals with the world’s largest human migration by millions of factory workers every year during the Chinese New Year. LAST TRAIN HOME is selected in world documentary competition at Sundance Film Festival 2010 and won the top prize at RIDM (Montreal) and the Whistler International Film Festival.

In 2006, Lixin worked as associate producer/soundman on the acclaimed feature documentary UP THE YANGTZE, a film about the world’€™s largest hydroelectric project, the Three Gorges Dam. The film played the Sundance Film Festival in 2008, won the Genie award as Canada’€™s top documentary feature, and was nominated for an Indie Spirit Award.

In 2003, he edited the Peabody and Grierson award-wining documentary TO LIVE IS BETTER THAN TO DIE. The film, recognized as one of the most shocking documentary on the topic, revealed China’€™s AIDS epidemic and was featured in the Sundance Film Festival and was broadcasted on HBO, BBC, CBC and PBS.

Trailer

Credits

Director LIXIN FAN

Editor  LIXIN FAN  MARY STEPHENS

Director of Photography  LIXIN FAN

Camera Operators  SHAOGUANG SUN  LIXIN FAN

Music  OLIVIER ALARY

Produced by  MILA AUNG-THWIN  DANIEL CROSS

Executive Producers  DANIEL CROSS  MILA AUNG-THWIN  QI ZHAO

Co-Producer  BOB MOORE

Production Supervisors  MICHAEL MK SIU  BOB MOORE

Camera Assistant  XINGBAO FU

Sound Recordist  LIMING FAN

Production Coordinators  YI HAN  DANIELA FLORI

Production Assistant  XINGBAO FU  XIAOYU NIU

Cultural Consultant  LILIAN LIU

Post-Production Supervisor   MICHAEL MK SIU

Story Editor   DANIEL CROSS

Editing Consultants  YUNG CHANG  PETER WINTONICK

Initial Picture Editor  MARY STEPHEN

Additional Picture Editor  HANNELE HALM

Assistant Editors  YI HAN  XI FENG

On-line Editor  MICHAEL MK SIU

Colorists  ERIC GAUDRY  FRANCIS HANNEMAN

Post-Production Assistants   EDMUND DUFF  ANJET BLINDE

Supervising Sound Editor  CORY RIZOS

Sound Designer  CORY RIZOS

Dialogue Editor and ADR Recordist  KYLE STANFIELD

Re-recording Mixers  GAVIN FERNANDES (C.A.S.)  CORY RIZOS

Contacts

TV SALES

CAT & DOCS

Screenings

MONICA VICTORIA
EYESTEELFILM

PRESS

“Last Train Home” represents the best kind of documentary filmmaking: It is transportive cinema, taking viewers to a place they never much considered and immersing them in an experience they never knew existed.”
—TIMES-PICAYUNE
“An expert, unobtrusive observer, Fan disappears inside his own film and allows us to get completely inside his subjects’ lives.”
LOS ANGELES TIMES
“Rivaling China’s finest documentarians, first-time director Lixin Fan begins his Last Train Home with a handful of unshakable images”
—FILM COMMENT
“4 STARS! Extraordinary”
 —ROGER EBERT
“Informed by a melancholy humanism, and finds unexpected beauty in almost unbearably harsh circumstances”
—NEW YORK TIMES
“This is essential viewing for understanding our world. “
—ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

Awards