Ayi

Ayi is 50 years old. She has witty eyes and long black hair falling down her back. She comes from a rural area of Eastern China and doesn’t have a “Hukou”, the residential permit that allows her to work in Shanghai. Yet, she has been cooking for 20 years in the streets, in an old Shanghai’s neighborhood soon to be demolished. Ayi, and the women around her, struggle to earn a living and escape the “Chengguan”, the local police. The movie unveils the chaos of an ultra-modern city, aiming to wipe out so-called substandard practices and to deport an unwanted population, embodied by Ayi.