“After I die, show your film at my funeral!” Zuogui, the director’s grandfather, is 86 years old and has been blind since childhood. Becoming a fortune teller was a way out of poverty for him. People are still coming to him for advice, including his son Donggu, a developer: “Dad, how is my fortune next year?” In his portrait of generations about his father and grandfather, Wei Deng depicts tradition and change, violence and alienation in Chinese society.

Pale greys and dim lights create an atmosphere that seems to correspond to the dark memories of famine, dead siblings and the violently enforced one-child policy. The camera stays close to the grandfather as he feels his way along the walls of his flat. Orienting himself in his own environment has become harder since Donggu had the old house torn down and a new one built. Zuogui has little use for the modern China that claims to stand for economic boom and prosperity. Only when another of his son’s developments, which the fortune teller had warned against, threatens to fail does affection between the two seem possible again.

A beach reminds us of Fati’s recent past. She came to Italy by sea, without papers, pregnant for the fifth time. Longing for her children, she returned to Ghana six months later – without her husband. The people around her can’t understand this decision. “You’ve created a mess,” a friend says. “How do I tell people?” a sister asks. But Fati wants to provide for her family, even though she still has to liberate three of her children from the custody of her in-laws.

Numerous recent documentaries have been dedicated to the experiences of people who arrive in the EU and get caught in the degrading conditions of asylum politics, but this work by Ghanaian director Fatimah Dadzie offers a change of perspective. In Fati’s hometown, Europe is considered a paradise – and what fool would voluntarily run away from there? The decision has lost the returnee all prestige. Her social exclusion is shown here by relatives as talking heads, directly in front of the camera. But when the film overlays everyday images of care work or street hawking with Fati’s voiceover, it gives a voice to its steadfast protagonist.