The Ninth Grade
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Country/Region:
China Mainland
Release Year: 2014
Release Year: 2014
Publish Date: 28 April 2022 16:00:00 UTC
Story:
Class 172 is a key class for their excellent students of an ordinary secondary school in Hunan province, from which the kids’ main goal is to upgrade into one of the best province-level high school – No.1 high school of the county. In the recent few years, the school’s enrollment rate to high school was not quite satisfying, and this year, the newly promoted class in charge teacher – Mr. Xiang, who’s only graduated a few years ago, became their brightest hope to teach the students and raise the enrollment rate for school. Most of the kids are born in poor families, and they’re left behind in the countryside as their parents go to the big city for work, life for them is basically struggling between their rebellious age and the busy, repeated studies. To achieve a better future, they must try their best to study hard, getting up at 6 a.m. and usually go to bed after 9 p.m… Finally, under the huge pressure and the irresistible rebellious in their age, the conflict breaks out right about the time to their final examination… The documentary presented the most real lives of a ninth grade class’ students, you would find not only a strength to fight for one’s future, but also some sadness you don’t know how to tell about…
Class 172 is a key class for their excellent students of an ordinary secondary school in Hunan province, from which the kids’ main goal is to upgrade into one of the best province-level high school – No.1 high school of the county. In the recent few years, the school’s enrollment rate to high school was not quite satisfying, and this year, the newly promoted class in charge teacher – Mr. Xiang, who’s only graduated a few years ago, became their brightest hope to teach the students and raise the enrollment rate for school. Most of the kids are born in poor families, and they’re left behind in the countryside as their parents go to the big city for work, life for them is basically struggling between their rebellious age and the busy, repeated studies. To achieve a better future, they must try their best to study hard, getting up at 6 a.m. and usually go to bed after 9 p.m… Finally, under the huge pressure and the irresistible rebellious in their age, the conflict breaks out right about the time to their final examination… The documentary presented the most real lives of a ninth grade class’ students, you would find not only a strength to fight for one’s future, but also some sadness you don’t know how to tell about…
Casts & Crews:
Jiang Nengjie
Directors
Runtime:
69
minutes
Subtitles:
Chinese, English
Festivals & Awards:
2015 "Behind Children" International Film Exhibition - Best Documentary Film, China 2015 Guangzhou Documentary Film Festival, China
2015 "Behind Children" International Film Exhibition - Best Documentary Film, China 2015 Guangzhou Documentary Film Festival, China
Director‘s Statement:
“The Ninth Grade”, after “The Road” and “Children at a village school”, is my 3rd documentary that focuses on left behind children, and also the last one of this series.
Being different from the other two, “The Ninth Grade” is more focuses on the education problems of these left behind children, who lacked of parents’ love during their growing-ups. And try to show their psychological changes when stepping into their rebellious ages. The original idea was to follow an ordinary class, however, due to many kinds of concerns, we followed this key class in the end, but the problems exist as much, and there’re still a lot things need the society to think about.
Since graduating from university in 2009, I’ve kept using my camera to pay close attentions to these left behind children, and devoted myself to charity panoramas in the past two years, hoping to draw the society’s larger attention on this special group.
It always makes me feel helpless to this kids, no matter to shoot their lives or to present them to the public. It’s a serious society problem, sorry that I cannot take more, maybe I’m just a documentary guy after all.
Now I just wish to follow these kids with all my life, to witness their growing-ups and their changes, and to tell their stories during this rapid developing era.
Being different from the other two, “The Ninth Grade” is more focuses on the education problems of these left behind children, who lacked of parents’ love during their growing-ups. And try to show their psychological changes when stepping into their rebellious ages. The original idea was to follow an ordinary class, however, due to many kinds of concerns, we followed this key class in the end, but the problems exist as much, and there’re still a lot things need the society to think about.
Since graduating from university in 2009, I’ve kept using my camera to pay close attentions to these left behind children, and devoted myself to charity panoramas in the past two years, hoping to draw the society’s larger attention on this special group.
It always makes me feel helpless to this kids, no matter to shoot their lives or to present them to the public. It’s a serious society problem, sorry that I cannot take more, maybe I’m just a documentary guy after all.
Now I just wish to follow these kids with all my life, to witness their growing-ups and their changes, and to tell their stories during this rapid developing era.
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Casts & Crews
Jiang Nengjie
Director
