The Next Life plot
A 40-year-old Chinese woman receives a painful injection in her buttock. 'Without a child, our lives have no meaning,' she explains. Her husband is devastated, and increasingly turns to smoking and drinking to cope with the agony of his wife's IVF treatments. He often bursts into tears. A year earlier, their 8-year-old daughter was killed in the Sichuan earthquake. They therefore hope for a girl. Due to the Chinese 'one-child policy', many parents have lost their only child and endure IVF treatment in old age to fill the void left behind.