早春三月的新疆，寒氣仍然逼人。棉花即將播種，冶文俊和他的妻子正在自家的地裡清理著去年地裡殘留下的棉花桿；幾千公里外，河南漯河的一家棉紡廠，十九歲的李萍不小心扭傷了自己的腳，她想請假休息幾天；深夜十一點，50歲的韋國強正在車間裡搬運已經縫製好的牛仔褲；早上六點半， 三十歲的延威和丈夫、三個孩子正在吃早餐，今天她又要起程去新疆摘棉花⋯⋯

 

他們是《棉花》這部影片中的主人公，也是棉花這條生產線上的一些普通人。中國社會彷彿給每個個體都提供了機會，人們都渴望自己，當然更希望自己的孩子能爬上上面一個「階梯」。他們努力著，辛勤勞作著，期待著明天會跟今天不一樣。在中國，與棉花這條生產鏈相關的人數以千萬計，耗時八年，導演解讀「棉花」，也想從中解讀「中國製造」於中國普通人的意義。

 

This Golden Horse Award winning documentary from 2014 looks at the cotton workers in China, and the struggles they face in the midst of the country’s relentless march towards a modern capitalist economy. Director Zhou Hao centers the film on the lives of four cotton trade workers, and illustrates the breadth of this labor-intensive industry by taking the viewer from the cotton fields of Northwestern Xinjiang to a glitzy fashion show in Guangdong Province. The film sheds some doubt on the new “social contract” on offer to citizens by Chinese leaders, as the newly prosperous society being promised actually appears to be reverting to the old class system that the communist regime originally sought to eliminate.