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Winner of this year’s Sundance Film Festival Documentary Grand Jury Prize, this eye-opening film lays bare China’s population-shaping policy, the accompanying propaganda and the multi-generational impact that’s still being felt today.
Officially, China’s one-child policy ended in 2015. But after 36 years of operation, the restrictive regime isn’t easily shaken. Interviewing both victims and instigators, and delving into her own traumatic family history, filmmaker Nanfu Wang (Hooligan Sparrow) not only uncovers heartbreaking truths that have been kept secret for decades but also trains her gaze on the gender discrimination at the centre of Chinese society.
Co-directing with fellow documentarian Jialing Zhang (Complicit), Wang is both personal and methodical in her approach. While the stirring feature is sparked by the filmmaker’s own experiences as a new mother, it casts its net wide – tracking down family planning nurses charged with inducing labour, abortions and forced sterilisations, and traversing the globe to find children taken from their families.
“A brilliant combination of cultural reporting and interpersonal reckoning.” – IndieWire
