What Kind of Life Is Possible on the Land? | Screening Event Registration

Life in the city carries us further and further from the land, but have you ever imagined another possibility?

The Chinese character 生, meaning “life”, is composed of 人 (“person”) and 土 (“earth”).

Three young women — Liu Suli, Ma Yuyuan and Wang Shuzhi — armed with a cross-cultural perspective spanning China and France and a deep curiosity about the countryside, decided to shoulder their cameras, plunge into China’s rural land, and eat, sleep and work alongside ecological farmers.

The documentary series Life on the Land is the fruit of their journey. This is more than a visual record that uses agriculture as its medium; it is a profound dialogue about survival, ideals and the land. Across six episodes, the camera follows ecological farmers who abandoned their former life paths and forged a renewed, intimate bond with the earth, asking: “What kind of life can a person truly live? And amid cascading climatic and social upheavals, how can we draw inspiration and wisdom from the countryside?”

On 12–13 September, the directing team behind Life on the Land will come to Beijing, inviting you to meet these idealists who till the soil and to witness the vitality that lives in the land.

 – Film Episode Introductions – 

Crazy Farm

At fifty, Mum Hu decided to leave the glamour and veneer of Taiwan’s business and political worlds. In her own words, she then “jumped headfirst into the great pit of ecological agriculture”. For twenty years, she has cultivated water-purification forests at Crazy Farm on the outskirts of Chengdu, explored integrated crop-and-livestock circular farming, and built a business model for a peri-urban farm.

Rouge Purple Rice

Seven different-coloured rice varieties add a riot of colour to the paddies of this small village nestled deep in Guizhou Province. “These are ancient rice varieties. For nearly six years we have been collecting them from local villagers. We now have a small seed bank, and if some villagers wish to grow these old varieties again, we can supply them with the seeds they need,” Chen Xi told us. From a childhood in Beijing to a senior post in Washington, D.C., Chen Xi had lived the “American Dream” — only to choose to give it all up in pursuit of a quiet life among the mountains of Guizhou. Her husband, Bangrong, is of the Dong ethnic group. Though the two grew up in vastly different worlds, walked very different life paths and possess entirely different temperaments, they ultimately met on a hillside of rice paddies.

Tusheng Kitchen

Inside Tusheng Kitchen in central Kunming, the lighting is soft and the menu is brief and seasonal; guests are already intoxicated by the aromas drifting from the kitchen. When the restaurant is quiet, Fanli takes the chance to visit her parents. Only in the kitchen garden does she show her most radiant smile. Were it not for the weight of social expectation, her greatest wish would be to become a farmer. “Why would a university graduate want to be a farmer?” her father asked when she confided this wish to him. Over the past decade, her parents have learned ecology from her, while she has absorbed the wisdom of farming from them.

Burning Wheat

An advertising-industry entrepreneur, Dahai turned to biodynamic farming at the age of forty. A single, simple lecture on the subject was enough to ignite the young scholar’s curiosity and prompt him to change his life entirely. From twenty mu to 240 mu of land, from growing wheat to running a biscuit production line, from second-hand tractors to multi-purpose farm machinery custom-modified to their needs — over the past decade, Dahai has experimented relentlessly and, together with his son Lexin, forged new paths in biodynamic farming.

Liu Suli | Suli graduated from Sciences Po Paris and Montpellier SupAgro, specialising in innovation and policy for sustainable agriculture and food. Her father is Chinese and her mother French; she spent eighteen years of her life in China.

Ma Yuyuan | Yuyuan graduated from Beijing Forestry University in 2015 and, in 2025, from the ÉSAD Pyrénées in France (DNSEP Design, majoring in multimedia graphic design). She currently lives and works in southern France.

Wang Shuzhi | Shuzhi is a photographer and video-maker dedicated to exploring China’s alternative communities. For years she has stayed connected with young people who choose new ways of living. Her nature-themed work began during the pandemic, when she had the opportunity to settle in an ecovillage in Sichuan Province.

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