Return to Dust

Synopsis

In this unlikely love story, social outcasts Ma and Guiying are married off to each other —a union of convenience that both families expect to be filled with isolation and misery. Despite such desultory beginnings, husband and wife slowly begin to understand, respect, and depend on one another and, against the odds, create a loving home. Set against a stark backdrop of urbanization, poverty, and worker exploitation, this deceptively simple narrative carries with it a rare humanity and warmth. Commanding landscape photography lends the story an epic scope to create a sweeping meditation on the joys and sorrows of life on the margins.