Hot Docs 2025 Official Selection
"Soft-spoken, richly personal, and deeply human, this film brings audiences into a world of quiet routines, long histories, and intimate love… it will stay with you" – Nicaille Paula Sison, Met Radio
A few years prior to the COVID pandemic, Hui Wang returned to Wuhan, China, to reconnect with her aging grandparents, who were her childhood caregivers. Now that they are in their late 80s, the pace of life in their modest home has slowed considerably, but they remain as active as possible in their quiet but rapidly transforming neighbourhood. Navigating various maladies, their humorous domestic bickering is loving evidence of a codependent couple’s deep bonds developed after spending the better part of a century together. Reflecting on both the joyful and difficult times and clearly rejuvenated by their granddaughter’s company, they recount China’s history through personal experiences during Japanese occupation during World War II and the subsequent Cultural Revolution. Wang balances her gentle observations between listening to her grandparents’ stories before the memories fade and witnessing the stark realities of bodies failing in their twilight years. The result is an unvarnished yet affectionate family portrait of a quiet generation. Alexander Rogalski, Hot Docs
In Mandarin, with English subtitles.
Join director Hui Wang for a special post-screening discussion.
Hui Wang (a.k.a. Jane) is a Toronto-based documentary filmmaker and programmer with a passion for observational storytelling. Her debut feature-length documentary Last Harvest (2015) won the Tokyo TV Forum Award at the CNEX Chinese Documentary Forum in Taiwan, was the closing night film at Planet in Focus International Environmental Film Festival and won two awards at the Whistler Film Festival. The Gardener and the Dictator was among the Top 20 Audience Favourites at the 2025 Hot Docs Festival, and opened the 2025 EBS International Documentary Festival in South Korea where it also won the Special Jury Award.
Promotional Partner: Reel Asian
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General: $15
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