A Way Out

The documentary follows three Chinese teenagers with very different family backgrounds, financial conditions and social living environments. They are shaped by their common upbringing and education. They reach the age when they think about their future and dream of big goals. One lives in the big city of Beijing, one in the city of Xianning in Hubei province in central China. Another in Huining, a tiny village far away in the mountains of Gansu province, one of the poorest provinces in China. Each of them deals differently with the questions of life that determine the future. The film accompanies them with their dreams, expectations, fears and hopes. They have to find their place in a tumultuously developing Chinese society, where success counts more than traditional values. *** 17-year-old Hanhan Yuan attended the upper school of the Academy of Fine Arts. Because she had skipped school too often, she left school with her mother's permission. Because she was bored at home, she opened a small bar. She rented an eight-square-metre room in the centre of town, decorated it with chairs and tables she painted and made herself. On opening day, two customers came, classmates who had also dropped out of school. After several days of sitting largely alone in her bar, she realised that this did not protect her from the boredom she always feels at home with her parents or even there alone. In 2010, she got an offer from the Bauhaus University in Weimar, started studying there in September 2010 and first learned German for a year. During this time she also went to Prague to deliver a friend's application to the famous Prague Film School. She fell in love with the city so much that she transferred to the university there. But after only one year, she went back to Germany and began her studies at the Academy of Arts in Düsseldorf. She started her studies all over again, and it was accepted that she did not have a school-leaving certificate, which she had been required to do in Prague. Her parents now hoped she had found her place and would not continue to wander, but Hanhan was always sure of what she wanted. She would never be able to live in one place for long. *** Jia Xu from the small town of Xianning is 19 years old. To succeed in the big city is only possible if you have studied at a prestigious university. In the national unified exams in 2007 and 2008, he scored 97 points, which was only enough for a third-class university. Now he wants to take the exam again and moves into a 20-square-metre room with his mother and younger brother. There they live as a threesome, sleeping only five hours to prepare for the entrance exam. In 2012, Jia Xu's studies ended and he is very focused on conducting interviews for jobs. But he feels that he does not present himself well. He is rejected, he is dejected and depressed. He pulls himself together, though, and is still learning. *** Twelve-year-old Baijuan Ma lives in the remote mountain village of Chengmu and attends the secondary school in the "Valley of the Wild Sparrows". There are two teachers and five students in the school, and Bajun has only one classmate. The school is 16 km from the village and she has to walk this distance every day. She hopes to attend university in Beijing one day, get a well-paid job, buy bread, build a house and have a well drilled for the family home. In her area, water is scarce, so people rarely shower in their lives. She wishes so much to be able to take a train to Beijing one day to see the big streets with her own eyes. In 2010, the family's life changed. Her brother moved the family to the city of Zhongwei, where Bajuan and her sister could study at better schools. But Bajun had increasing problems with the speed at which her classmates were progressing. She became quieter and quieter. In 2012, she left school at the age of 16. To relieve her older brother, she goes looking for a job in the city. But how will she find a job without having completed her education?