Petition

Chinese citizens with grievances against their local governments have the right to petition for their record to be corrected. To do it, though, they must travel to Beijing, file the paperwork and then wait for an indefinite length of time; the waiting stretches into years, and the petitioners build their own quarter on the edge of the capital. Zhao Liang followed these people from 1996 to 2008 and put the camera beside the petitioners rather than beside the officials, the police or the men sent by the municipalities. Most of it was filmed in secret. What comes out is a documentary the length of a novel, showing how the same faces change over the years. The hundred and twenty minute Chinese production was completed in 2009.