"I'm relating reality as it is in China today," director Zhao Liang told AFP in an interview.

His "Petition" documents the plight of China's judicial "petitioners" -- people from across the land who gather in Beijing in the hope of righting legal wrongs suffered back home.

"These people are sacrificing themselves for China," said Zhao, whose work is one of 15 feature-length films selected for screening by the festival but showing out-of-competition for the Palme d'Or award.

"There is a lot of corruption. China's problem today is that justice is not independent," he said.

Often from the most disadvantaged social classes, the petitioners come to Beijing's Complaints Office of the Supreme People's Court after failing to win cases lodged at local or regional level.

Filmed over a decade in alleyways and makeshift huts near the city's South railway station -- a teeming area once known as "Petitioners' City" -- the two-hour documentary focuses on the dire living conditions of the petitioners and their often hopeless quests for judicial redress.

Living off waste, sleeping rough, and locked in relentless red tape, they also face bands of thug "retrievers" sent by local authorities to shoo them home -- which often means jail or a mental hospital.

A 2006 scene shows a group recovering a jaw, a severed hand and other body parts left on a railway track where an old woman was cut down by a passing train while trying to escape retrievers.

The tale of a mother and daughter is told over a decade, from when the girl is 12 to her decision at adulthood to leave a life on the streets and marry. During her fight for justice, the mother spent five years locked up, including months drugged in psychiatric wards.

"Although we are on the road to openness, there is a still a lot to do in China," Zhao said. "This film aims to inform people about the petitioners."

"I see myself as a doctor looking at an ill person," Zhao said. "It is urgent to cure this sickness and look after the ill."

The 38-year-old film-maker said that because "Petition" was a documentary, he did not need to request an official permit in order to film nor did he require official authorisation to show the work at Cannes.

The film is scheduled to screen at a Chinese independent film festival this month. "There is space in China nowadays for this sort of film to be shown," he said.

The "Petitioners" area was razed ahead of the 2008 Olympics, when Zhao's film stops, to make way for the new South Station, Asia's largest rail terminal. But the petitioners are still in Beijing, pushed further away deep into the suburbs.

Peppered with their criticism of party officials and calls for pro-democratic revolt, Zhao said: "I can't say I agree with the petitioners in the film. I have merely related reality."

"I'm interested in the humanity of these people," he added. "In China networks are essential and these people can't pull strings."

"These people are sacrificing themselves for the good of China. I would never become a petitioner myself. I don't have sympathy for them but I do have respect."

earlier related report
Tiananmen leaders call on Taiwan to back Chinese democracy
Former student leaders from the Tiananmen crackdown called on Taiwan Sunday to continue backing China's democracy movement while acting to improve ties with Beijing.

The call came as Chinese dissidents prepared to mark the 20th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square bloodshed, during which hundreds, possibly thousands, of students and workers joining a peace rally were killed in China's capital.

"Over the past 20 years, there's no denying that we've seen China growing rapidly in economy. However, the Chinese communist party has not changed its stance on the crackdown," Wang Dan, a student at Peking University at that time, told reporters.

"Their stance has been consistent over the past two decades," said Wang, who was on the list of 21 most wanted students in China following the crackdown and now lives in exile in the United States.

He urged the Taiwanese to continue their support for China's democracy movement which he said would increase Chinese people's understanding of the island.

"From a long term point of view, this should be a plus to Taiwan," he said.

Wu'er Kaixi, another former Tiananmen student leader who now lives in Taiwan, urged the island's President Ma Ying-jeou to keep the Tiananmen crackdown, which he termed a "moral" rather than "political" issue, on the agenda.

"Any of your support would be a great comfort to the family of those killed," he said.

However, Wang and other Chinese dissident leaders suspect that Ma, who has criticised Beijing's military crackdown in Tiananmen, is shifting away from his past stance as his administration seeks to improve cross-Strait ties.

Wang said the former government of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party was more supportive of China's democracy movement than the ruling Kuomintang, with which Ma is affiliated.

Ma's spokesman Wang Yu-chi defended the president's record.

"President Ma has been consistent in the Tiananmen issues. He has not changed his stance before and after the inauguration," he said, adding that Ma would issue a statement reiterating his support of China's democracy movement upon his return from an overseas trip on June 4.

Cross-Strait relations have improved dramatically since Ma took office one year ago. The two sides have held three rounds of negotiations that resulted in regular direct flights, an easing of investment restrictions and a boost in tourism.

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