A Long Way Home

A Long Way Home follows Pan Zhaode’s forced return to his hometown of Baisha, Chongqing, amid reverse migration and the pandemic. His daily motorbike ride spans two collapsing worlds: a fragile rural household on one end and, on the other, a distillery forced to downsize during COVID.At home, the strain deepens. His mother is confined to a psychiatric hospital, his young daughters become both his responsibility to care for and self-reliant out of necessity, and his father’s death lays bare the cost of filial duty. Debt and his wife’s absence press on his shoulders.

Shot over four years in intimate cinéma-vérité and edited by Yan Yu (Before the Flood), director Zheng Xusong lets factory banter, livestream patter, and funeral whispers trace how national currents reshape one man’s most private choices. The film asks what still binds a person to “home” when work, love, and tradition fail.