Please Vote for Me

A third-grade class at a primary school in Wuhan is going to elect its class monitor. The teacher picks three candidates: Luo Lei, Xu Xiaofei and Cheng Cheng. The children have a few days to convince their classmates, make speeches and present themselves. The camera follows them at school and at home. At home, what the parents are doing to get their child elected becomes visible. Weijun Chen's documentary shows what a campaign turns into in the hands of eight- and nine-year-olds: alliances, gifts, tears and the humiliation of a rival. The film sets this up not to pass judgement on a country but to see what the thing called an election pushes people into doing. It runs fifty-eight minutes. It made the Academy Award documentary shortlist and won the top prize at Silverdocs.