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Zanta

A Tibetan widow forges an unusual partnership with a foreign journalist to confront her violent father-in-law over for his refusing to school her son.

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Synopsis

Widowed at age 26 and destitute, Tibetan farmer Zanta leaves her two-year-old son in her remote village to peddle gewgaws on the streets of Beijing. Five years later, she makes an emergency trip home after learning her ailing father has been beaten by neighbors and hospitalized after trying to defend seven-year-old Yang Qing from school bullies. The village children tease her son because his dad is dead— a big stigma in Tibetan culture. Yang Qing, who thought his dad was away on business, refuses to eat or return to school.

Zanta proposes a radical solution: she tells her family she will bring her boy to Beijing and give him to an American journalist (Jocelyn Ford, Director) who several years back bought a bracelet from her, and handed her a business card. Despite her parents' staunch opposition, Zanta is determined to give her son a better future, even if it means giving him to a stranger. The foreigner is unwittingly dragged into an explosive family feud, and reluctantly takes on the role of Zanta's protector as the widow is held hostage by her knife-wielding father-in-law, and faces police violence on the streets of Beijing.