“Petition Village” is located behind Beijing’s South Railway Station. The inhabitants of this shantytown have come from all over China and they all share a single objective: reparation from the Chinese state. Qi’s husband, for example, died after a routine medical checkup and was immediately cremated. Qi wants to get to the bottom of the matter, but the local authorities in her village refuse to respond.

And that’s why she and her daughter have been camping for the last 10 years in Petition Village. From there, she makes her daily trek to the Petition Office. It’s a hopeless case, as are those of many of the other complainants whom filmmaker Liang Zhao has been following for years. The absolute powerlessness in the face of the arbitrary indifference of the totalitarian state is shocking to behold.

Zhao has been chronicling the rapid transformations Beijing is undergoing for years, focusing in particular on how these changes are expressed in the relationship between individuals and the authorities. He employs a reportage style to film the anonymous activists in their tumbledown accommodations, while standing in line, or at the Petition Office counter, persevering in a hopeless struggle.