An extraordinary, deeply courageous documentary by first-time director Jill Li, who spent six years filming one of the most significant grassroots democracy movements in contemporary China. With exceptional persistence, she embedded herself in Wukan, a coastal village whose residents rose up against corrupt officials who had illegally sold communal land.

Li’s process was itself a feat of political bravery. She filmed in a climate where independent documentation of protest is dangerous and tightly surveilled. Working almost entirely on her own, she gained the trust of villagers, attended strategy meetings, captured internal debates, and recorded scenes of negotiation and confrontation rarely accessible to outsiders. Her small, unobtrusive setup allowed her to stay close to the community even as the stakes rose. Several activists in the film were later detained or imprisoned, and while Li herself was not arrested, she has spoken about the high personal risk of filming and about pressure and fear surrounding the project. She ultimately edited the film outside mainland China to ensure its safety and completion.

The documentary begins with villagers uniting against decades of land theft. Their organizing is remarkable: they hold open-air assemblies, elect representatives, and force the removal of corrupt officials—an unprecedented grassroots democratic breakthrough in a one-party state. For a brief moment, Wukan becomes a global symbol of the possibility of local democracy in China.

But Lost Course distinguishes itself by showing what happens after the “victory.” As government pressure intensifies and land restitution stalls, villagers grow divided. The very leaders they elected face public frustration, burnout, and ultimately state repression. Several are arrested and sentenced to long prison terms. The movement fractures under the combined weight of internal conflict and external punishment.

Rather than presenting a simple triumph or defeat, the film reveals the emotional, strategic, and human complexity of long-term grassroots resistance:

• how unity is built and broken
• how repression reshapes a movement
• how personal sacrifice accumulates over time, and
• how hope and disappointment coexist in the same struggle.

Since the film’s release, Wukan’s brief democratic experiment has been completely dismantled. Its elected leaders remain silenced or imprisoned, and the village is now tightly controlled. Across China, the political space for this kind of collective action has narrowed dramatically; Lost Course stands as a rare archive of a moment when villagers could still challenge corruption through mass mobilization.