Little Moth
Filmfest 2008

Little Moth Bought for 1,000 yuans, 11-year old Xiao E’zi ("Little Moth") can’t walk (she lost the use of her legs due to a blood desease that could have been cured if many had been there for medicine). But her new "parents", Luo Jiang and his wife Guihua, have a use for her. They’re trying their luck at a new capitalist business venture: begging in the streets. Begging is a business like any other – with rules and territories – and this is what the 'family' formed by Luo, Guihua and Xiao E’zi do for a living. Her friend, the young one-armed XIAO Chun, also a hapless participant in the "business", talks 'Little Moth', who has reluctantly accepted her fate, into trying to escape... PENG Tao Peng Tao's heartbreaking feature melds the anger and storytelling scope of Dickens, the doc-influenced immediacy and sensitive gaze of the Dardenne brothers, and the best tendencies of recent Chinese cinema. Variety