Toronto Human Rights Watch Film Festival

 
Director Lixin Fan will be a special guest at tonight’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival Opening Night Gala.
 
Lixin will introduce his award-winning film, Last Train Home, and participate in a Q&A session with Human Rights Watch Media Director, Minky Worden.
 
Last Train Home tells the story of one family trying to navigate the transit snafu that befalls China every February during Lunar New Year  — the largest human migration on Earth. In doing so, it explores the human cost of China’s large-scale urbanization and entrance into the global marketplace. Last Train Home won the award for best documentary at last year’s International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam.
 
Last Train Home screens at 6:30 PM at The Isabel Bader Theatre and will be followed by a reception at McKinsey & Co. for those holding gala tickets.
 
Tickets for the screening are still available. Please call the TIFFG Box Office at 416-968-FILM or toll-free 1-877-968-FILM. Tickets can also be purchased online at tiff.net/cinematheque or in person at the theatre (tonight only).
 
Lixin Fan worked as a producer/journalist at China’s state broadcaster CCTV before he became a filmmaker and moved to Montreal, Canada. Born and raised in the period of China’s integration into the world, Lixin had engaged himself in social political filmmaking to document and interpret the vast changes took place in a time of changes. Lixin worked as associate producer on the acclaimed feature documentary, Up the Yangtze, a best Canadian documentary film at TIFF in 2007, a finalist at IDFA and Sundance 2007. In 2003, Lixin 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, reveals China’s AIDS epidemic and was featured at The Sundance Film Festival and broadcast on BBC, CBC and PBS.
 
Lixin Fan recently spoke to The Globe & Mail, Metro News and The National Post in advance of tonight’s screening. Last Train Home opens theatrically in select theatres across Canada on Friday. You can also listen to an audio interview with Lixin Fan on Pop88 podcast.