Speaker 1: More than 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners
protested peacefully in Beijing.
Speaker 2: Protestors gathered on the streets, outside the
Chinese communist party headquarters.
Speaker 3: It amounts to the largest demonstration since the
Tienanmen Square massacre in 1989.
Speaker 4: [Chinese] Come on! Go…
Speaker 5: [Chinese] Falun Gong teaches us to be a good
person. The more people practice, the better, right?
Speaker 6: [Chinese] Opportunities like this don't come
around often. It's up to you to make the most of it.
Speaker 7: [Chinese] The government declares Falun Gong
illegal. It is officially banned.
Speaker 8: [Sound of punching human body] [Chinese] Do you
denounce Falun Gong?
Speaker 9: [Chinese] As a student Party leader, you of all
people should follow the Party.
Speaker 10: [Chinese] Everything here…It's all a lie.
Speaker 11: [Chinese] Why did you kill your parents?
Speaker 12: [Chinese] I learned from Falun Gong.
Speaker 13: [Chinese] He was willing to say anything once we
offered to spare him the death penalty.
Speaker 14: [Chinese] Good work.
Speaker 15: [Chinese] You wouldn't be doing this.
Speaker 16: [Chinese] Mom… How can you believe this?
Speaker 17: [Chinese] We must expose the truth.
Speaker 18: [Chinese] Stop!
Speaker 19: No, no, I'm a reporter with Chicago Post.
Speaker 20: You begged me to get you back here, whatever it
took.
Speaker 21: I cannot stand by and watch them being
manipulated.
Speaker 22: This unit!
Speaker 23: They're turning against each other.
Speaker 24: The government is conducting one of the largest
scale propaganda campaigns in history. You just want to
ignore it.
Speaker 25: What are you going to do? Walk into the prison
at the [inaudible 00:03:10].
Speaker 26: Get out of China, expose their lies to the
world.
Speaker 27: [Chinese] Fly high!
Mr. Jekielek: I can't remember somehow the last time I saw a
film come out of Hollywood that was in any way critical of
the Chinese regime.
Mr. Lee: Well, the last time is perhaps 1997 when actually
we had the three films coming from Hollywood being remotely
critical of the Chinese regime.
They talked about the human
rights issues in Tibet and so on, and so forth.
But after that, Hollywood seemed to have learned a big
lesson. In order to get into the Chinese market, which last
year, I believe, officially surpassed the United States in
terms of box office to be the largest in the world.
They are
no longer able to produce anything that tells the truth
about China.
And not only that, I believe there was a trend
to actively please the censors in Beijing in order to get
into the market.
Mr. Jekielek: Your film really made me think a lot, frankly,
not just about China, but about the world in general, and
frankly how unlikely heroes are made.
Tell me a little bit
more about how you found these stories.
Mr. Lee: While making my last documentary, I had an
opportunity to meet Wang who turned out to be the
protagonist in the film in the United States.
He had just
escaped from China after spending eight years in prison. And
all his crime was basically exposing the persecution through
very peaceful means.
And he was a Ph.D. candidate in China's
MIT, the prestigious Tsinghua University. He had a bright
future, of course.
But then in 1999, the government in China started cracking
down on the Falun Gong. And he had been practicing for some
time then. So overnight, he turned from this bright star in
an elite university to the enemy of the state.
He was
expelled from school, but he did not give up. He and his
friends started this grassroot movement to disseminate
information, countering state propaganda.
The story is based
on his own experience, as well as experiences from other
practitioners of Falun Gong, and Western reporters.
Mr. Jekielek: Well, first of all, I want to talk about Wang
because Wang has a professor in the film. I really love that
character in the film.
This professor is troubled by the
fact that I think he lost his son in the Tiananmen Square
massacre in 1989. And he sees what's happening.
And he's
afraid that the same will happen to his protégé.
Mr. Lee: Absolutely, like an entire generation of Chinese.
Their ideals, their dreams, their courage were crushed by
the massacre in 1989.
Many people completely lost hope. And
for them to be able to survive, that's their priority. There
is no longer any pursuit of any ideals.
And his professor,
as you mentioned, lost his son in 1989.
And Wang, he considered Wang his second son. Everything he
learned in his life was that do not go against the Party.
This is the one thing you do not want to do.
And he's trying
his best to convince Wang to give up, to renounce his
beliefs.
But Wang, of course, believed that his belief is
right, that everything the government was trying to say
about
Falun Gong was false, was complete propaganda.
And he
believed the importance of telling the truth.
So, there was
an interesting dynamic between the professor and Wang.
Mr. Jekielek: I just have to comment here, Leon. The first
film that I saw of yours was "Human Harvest." And it was one
of your very early films.
Talk about talking about an issue
that you're not allowed to talk about. This was one of the
really big exposes of the whole murder for organs industry
in China.
And I know you experienced a lot of difficulties
in actually having this film made, and distributed, and
eventually ended up winning a Peabody award for this.
But
maybe just briefly, if we're going to talk about being unsilenced, about important issues, tell me a little bit
about that.
Mr. Lee: Yes. "Human Harvest" was an expose about the
illegal organ trade in China.
It turned out the Chinese
regime had been harvesting vital organs from Falun Gong
practitioners, Uyghurs, Tibetans, political dissidents in
the hundreds of thousands.
Of course, this is to fill the
booming transplant industry in China.
In the beginning, most of the recipients are wealthy Western
patients. After the expose, they turned to domestic market.
Domestic patients are mainly the recipients of those organs
now.
Many organizations have been working on this issue
trying to pressure the Chinese regime to stop using organs
from death row inmates and from other political dissidents.
Although China made a promise to do so, unfortunately, the
practice hasn't really stopped.
Mr. Jekielek: In terms of trying to actually get a film like
this made on an issue where you just know that no official
body will ever admit to doing such things, tell me a little
bit about that.
Mr. Lee: Most of my films have centered on human rights
issues in China, partly because nobody else is doing it.
I'm
fully aware of how difficult it would be. But until I
started really doing these films, I didn't really know how
difficult it would be.
Take the example of "Unsilenced," which we recently
finished. I remember in the first production meeting I was
telling my core team that, "Guys, we're making a film about
China, but there were two things you need to know.
Number one, we cannot use Chinese cast. Number two, we
cannot use Chinese locations. So good luck."
And that was very basic difficulties we faced. Of course,
then we did face those challenges. Even when we decided to
make this film in Taiwan, several senior cast members, even
after signing a deal memo, they would back off, sometimes
only days before production would start.
In one case, the actor was stressed out because his family
and the heavyweight in the film industry in Taiwan, all came
together trying to pressure him to back off, telling him
this is suicide.
You just cannot do a film like this. In
other cases, I even have a few roles in the film who are
Western actors. They're based in Taiwan.
Even they backed
off because they still want to participate in mainland
Chinese productions in Taiwan.
In terms of locations, the same thing. Initially, I thought
Taiwan is a democracy and this film is about China. But the
fact that we cannot make it in China, but we can make it in
Taiwan, actually shows the world that Taiwan is a democracy,
shows the world why we need to defend Taiwan.
But many
people were so afraid to allow us to use their locations.
In one case, I believe it was secretary Young's office. We
started decorating the set. As soon as the owner of the
facility saw the Chinese flags, she freaked out.
She said,
"No. You can't shoot your film here. You must go
somewhere else."
But then we said,
"But we were going to shoot the scene the
next day. We cannot find another place overnight."
She said,
"I don't care. You can't film here."
So quite often, after a
long day of production, say 12, 13 hours, the core team had
to go look for another location for the next day.
After the
production, I realize that in two months of production, our
key creative team had only one day off.
Mr. Jekielek: That's incredible.
Well, and you actually
raised a really interesting point. The issue comes from a
few different directions. On the one hand, you have people
that are afraid of making the Chinese regime across the
strait angry.
There's these over flights over Taipei all the
time. I mean, they're spreading this sense of fear.
But then
the other side of it is there's a whole bunch of people that
are just like,
"What's that Chinese flag doing here? No way
you're going to be in here."
So, it kind of comes from two
sides, doesn't it?
Mr. Lee: Absolutely.
And speaking of fear, I got a firsthand
experience myself, which made me sympathize with them more.
I was living in the middle of Taipei. And a few mornings, I
was woken up by loud noises.
And turned out to be Taiwan's
fighter jets scrambling to intercept Chinese fighter jets.
And this became a frequent event to a point that when people
meet each other, they would comment, would talk about,
"Oh,
this morning, the Chinese jets came again to harass us."
So,
for us, it is something that we read about on headlines from
time to time. For the people in Taiwan, it's a daily reality
they have to face.
Mr. Jekielek: There's this other element.
There's of course
a significant portion of the Taiwanese population that
really wants, has nothing to do with mainland China, as it
exists today.
Mr. Lee: Right.
There's lots of political things going on
there. But also the CCP's intimidation and harassment
certainly played no small part role in terms of driving more
and more people in Taiwan away from the concept of China, no
matter how you want to define it.
It is safe to say that the
vast majority of people in Taiwan cherish their way of life,
and almost no one wants to live under the control of the
Chinese Communist Party.
Mr. Jekielek: So, Leon, the thing that really struck me
about the film was this, I guess this theme that I mentioned
earlier, that heroes are made of sometimes unlikely people
who are not necessarily very heroic at the beginning.
And
I'm remembering this scene where the young man, the good
friend of Wang, his co-student, coworker in projects is
being told to denounce Wang by the university communist
party secretary.
And I actually want to run that scene.
Speaker 28: [Chinese] Wang was a team leader in our
laboratory. He was always ready to help others. He studied
hard to achieve high grades.
Since his obsession with Falun
Gong began, he was only interested in "seeking perfection"
and achieving a "higher level," which affected his work, and
lead to the detriment of the entire lab.
When the Party
wisely decided to ban Falun Gong, Wang refused to repent. He
lost everything, including his status at a school that most
are lucky to attend.
He was led astray from his normal life,
step by step, into the mind control of Falun Gong.
Speaker 29: [Chinese] Let me elaborate further. Wang not
only ruined his own future, he also abetted Li and Xia in
disrupting social order. Now Xia has been arrested.
Speaker 28: [Chinese] [Shocked] Xia was arrested!?
Mr. Jekielek: So, this moment, he was ready to read this
paper about his friend.
Of course, he felt horrible about
doing it because he knew the ramifications of going against
the Communist Party.
But then when he is forced to denounce
his girlfriend, the person he loves, that's too far. And it
really changes him. It makes him realize there's something
terrible, terrible I'm being forced to do here.
It was just
such a gripping moment.
Mr. Lee: Right. It was interesting for me in the sense that
some people felt,
"Why don't you simply renounce your faith?
Just go along with a party and then you have a life."
This
scene, this experience shows that no you won't have a life.
Simply renouncing your faith is not enough. You have to turn
in your friends. You have to betray the people you love. You
have to completely sell your soul to the regime in order to
survive.
And do you still call that surviving? Do you still
call that living?
So I think for Jiang, he finally realized that there's no
way out. The only thing he can do is to find his own
conscience and to say what he means. And interestingly
enough, if we dive into some backstory, Jiang came from
probably in the military family. And his father participated
in the massacre in 1989.
So, they knew that they should not
go against the party.
But now Jiang knew also, if he wants
to preserve the self-esteem that he cherished, the only way
is to hold onto his own faith and hold onto the truth.
Mr. Jekielek: And this seems like a perpetual theme when it
comes to dealing with the Chinese Communist Party.
It's
almost like you have to give up the things you cherish most
to work with it, or perhaps not have them in the first
place.
Mr. Lee: Yes. And this scene also tells us more about how
the persecution works, because maybe for many people, they
felt,
"Okay, the police will come. They will arrest
practitioners. They will be tortured, which is bad enough."
But that's not all of it. In China, every school, every
medium or large workplace, sometimes even private
enterprises, the military, news organizations, almost every
place, even your community, your neighborhood, there will be
a communist party representative who is responsible to carry
out the party policies.
And sometimes this person ranks even
higher than your general manager or your school principal.
So, the entire nation is mobilized in the crackdown against
Falun Gong. For example, in this scene, if some university
students are caught disseminating information about Falun
Gong, then the party secretary may be demoted.
She may be
fired. And that's why you see husbands forced to divorce
their wives. Children were kicked out of school because
their parents are Falun Gong practitioners.
Your colleagues,
your classmates, your friends, everybody is mobilized,
turned against you.
Just like what you see in the scene, people are often forced
to renounce their beliefs in front of their colleagues,
classmates, in front of the people they love, they care
about.
And in front of everybody, they have to say things
that they do not believe in. They have to tow the party lie.
So, in a sense, the crackdown completely destroyed the
entire nation.
Mr. Jekielek: What do you think the purposes of these very,
very public forced confessions or denunciations, what do you
think the purpose of these is?
Mr. Lee: I think the purpose is to create an environment
where everybody understands that whatever the party says,
you just have to follow.
Everybody needs to understand that
you have to completely disregard whether something is true
or not. They no longer want people to believe in what's
true.
They want people to only believe in what the party
wants them to believe.
Mr. Jekielek: I'm thinking of this other character, the
young woman who basically was participates in hanging the
banners, shown early in the film, gets arrested, tortured
horrifically, and eventually gets out of prison.
But
ultimately, she demands of the reporter, the Western
reporter, that he tell her story in her name, even though
he's telling her,
"I can get you out of the country. I can
do it anonymously."
She said,
"No, you have to do it in my
name. People need to know this is real."
Mr. Lee: Right.
Xia, the woman you mentioned, experienced
extreme torture, which is actually well documented by human
rights organizations, even the United Nations, in the
crackdown against Falun Gong.
Even in my previous films,
we've depicted quite a few torture methods.
In "Letter from Masanjia," for example, Sun Yi was tied into
a very painful position for days. In "The Bleeding Edge,"
we've seen practitioners' fingernails being pried out
with bamboo shoots.
In "Unsilenced," for example, we have
practitioners burned by irons, shocked by electric batons.
So, violence and propaganda, the two most effective weapons
the CCP had.
Mr. Jekielek: Well, and in the face of this, and again, back
to this theme that came out for me, which is, how unlikely
heroes are made.
There's a lot of really innovative ways
that in the face of the complete control of the media by the
regime that these practitioners of Falun Gong figure out how
they can actually get the word out about the reality that
they face, and frankly, just the reality about Falun Gong
itself.
Mr. Lee: Right.
Speaking of complete control, I think many
people might not have the idea of the extent of the control.
Well, there's a government agency in China, for a long time
it is actually called the propaganda department of the
Central Committee of the CCP. But then they realized that's
not the best translation.
So, they changed the name to the
Publicity Department.
But its sole goal is to completely control the media in
China, thousands of newspapers, hundreds of TV networks.
Many of them receive dozens of directives from the
propaganda department in terms of what to report, what word
to use, what articles to censor.
Hundreds and thousands of
internet police patrolling the Chinese social media space
and the internet, which by the way, is completely shielded
off by The Great Firewall from the outside world.
So, you
don't have access to YouTube, Google, Facebook, Twitter, not
at all.
And in this scenario, imagine how difficult it is for the
Chinese citizens to say anything that is different from the
party narrative. That's why the Falun Gong practitioners
employ various ways.
For example, they would distribute
flyers door to door. They would distribute leaflets through
balloons.
They would sometimes pass on DVDs to people. And
there are also cases where they use loud speakers with a
timer. They hang speakers in a public place or even
sometimes near prisons, detention centers.
And the timer
would allow them to escape before the broadcast would begin.
So [there are] various ways to get their voices heard. But
what really amazed me was that despite the violent
suppression, Falun Gong practitioners have never employed
violence in their own struggle.
They've done everything they
can in peaceful ways. Falun Gong practitioners' efforts
perhaps is the largest nonviolent movement in the last 20
years.
Mr. Jekielek: I would also say that this incredible
innovation in dissemination of information across a country
of 1.3 billion is, I just think, a completely unprecedented
campaign of grassroots peaceful activism.
Mr. Lee: Yes.
And the Chinese regime of course recognized
how effective this campaign is. They've also taken the
extreme measure. I'll give you two examples.
One is across
the supply stores where people can buy print paper. For a
long time, they will have secret agents there trying to find
out who is coming to buy paper, buy cartridges.
Sometimes
the paper is also marked so they can trace back to see who
is getting those things.
Another example, which by the way, we show one of those
scenes in our film, where Lee went to buy paper. And the
owner actually reported her to the police.
The other case,
the officials put special devices on their vans and they
would go through different communities trying to detect
whose printers are running.
And based on how long it is
running, they can say,
"Well, maybe this is underground
material site that's being used to produce those
leaflets."
Mr. Jekielek: And the other thing that just jumps to my mind
too is there's ultimately this professor, despite being
incredibly fearful for what was likely going to happen to
his newfound second son, as you describe him, in the end, he
kind of realizes and finds a little courage himself.
Mr. Lee: I think it's hard to know how this whole movement
are changing people's minds because of the heavy censorship.
But I have no doubt that the Falun Gong practitioners'
efforts over the years have planted seeds in China.
One thing I like to point out is the
Tuidang Movement.
Essentially, they set out a website asking Chinese people
who have joined the party or the youth league or the pioneer
teams, which are both affiliated organizations of the
communist party in China to go on this website to basically
say, "I quit."
You can use your real name or you can use an
alias.
Now in the beginning, I have to admit I was a little
skeptical. It was a website. You can go there and just type
something.
So what's the big deal?
But last time I checked,
over 380 million people have gone to the website. Some
simply said, I quit. I quit the party. I quit the youth
league.
Some people would spend the time to write a long essay
detailing how they first joined the party, how their
impression of the party changed over the years, why they had
to quit. I think these people are the seeds.
And one day
when the time comes, these people will play a significant
role in changing China forever.
Mr. Jekielek: And this Tuidang Movement is really
interesting because, as you mentioned, it's not something
that people have to do publicly, yelling in the streets, the
communist party is evil.
But it's something, I've heard it
described as a kind of an internal cleansing because it's
sort of people recognizing the party for what it is, and
just putting it aside from them.
Whereas as you've been
describing throughout our interview, it tries to kind of
insert itself into every aspect of your life and your
consciousness, frankly.
Mr. Lee: Exactly.
Even though many people use aliases to
quit the party on this particular website, it still takes
tremendous courage in a society like China.
So, the fact
that so many people have gone to the site and did something
like this really gave me hope.
Exactly as you mentioned,
this is an internal thing. But the very fact that they did
it means that they have found the courage to do so.
Mr. Jekielek: One very, very effective piece of propaganda
that you document in the film, and it's one of the sort of
an important part of the development of the film, which I'm
not going to give away why, but was the so-called
self-immolation incident.
And what does that tell you?
Tell
me a little bit about why you chose to use that and what it
was, even what significance it has today?
Mr. Lee: In the Chinese New Year's Eve on January 23rd,
2001, according to the Chinese state media, seven members of Falun Gong set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square in
Beijing.
Now this became huge news. Right after the
incident, the Chinese regime put out 24/7 propaganda across
the nation. At a time when the persecution has been slow
down because many people in China felt there was simply no
need to suppress such peaceful group.
And what the party did
went so far.
But from the Falun Gong side, they heavily disputed this
event, because in their teachings, they explicitly forbid
any violence or suicide.
Two weeks after the event,
Philip
Pan from the Washington Post actually went to Kaifeng where
the Chinese government claims that the practitioners came
from to investigate the identity of the two victims who died
in the incident.
Nobody ever saw them practicing Falun Gong.
Since then, there were new reports coming out. There was a
documentary made by my friend Jason Loftus called "Ask No
Questions," also diving into this particular incident. So
now it is clear, at least to me, that this incident is
staged by the Communist Party to defame Falun Gong.
The entire self-immolation incident was used as a weapon to
dehumanize and defame Falun Gong nationwide. And it really
turned the public tide.
For a long time, the public were
sympathetic towards the
Falun Gong practitioners. But after
the incident, we see a lot more people turning in
practitioners they know.
We see even increased use of
extreme violence against the practitioners.
Mr. Jekielek: So when it comes to this reporter character,
the Western reporter who has just made it back into the good
graces of the Chinese Communist Party after having reported
on the Tiananmen Square massacre 10 years before, he's now
looking around, trying to figure out what's going on.
He's calling back to his editor, and the editor is saying,
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, what do you want to report on? Listen,
let's report on nice friendly things."
So, this sounds like
a common theme these days.
But is this what was happening
back then too?
Mr. Lee: Yes.
The Chinese regime had
various ways to censor, control or influence foreign
reporters in China. And this has been well documented by
organizations such as Reporters Without Borders.
And in
"Unsilenced," our reporter is a
composite character. I did interview many reporters who
[were] stationed in China.
And I was able to incorporate
some of their experiences into this character.
And for many reporters, dealing with the interference and
censorship is a daily reality. Sometimes they were only
given for example, three months visa or six months of visa.
And depending on what articles they write during this period
of time, their visa may or may not be extended.
Now for some reporters, it might be okay. They come back to
the States, they get assigned to a different beat. That's
fine. But for some people, China is their specialty.
They've
been studying Chinese since college. This is what they do.
And for a Chinese expert, for a scholar in academia or a
reporter, if they lose access to China, they sort of lose
access to everything.
And that's why for many of them to be
able to report the truth, it's a constant struggle.
Mr. Jekielek: This actually reminds me of a recent interview
I did with Ashley Rensburg, who was talking about various
New York Times reporting of the past.
And one example was
Walter Duranty in the '30s, that during Stalin's forced
famine of Ukraine in the 1930s, he was reporting everything
was great over there, and won a Pulitzer for it.
And one of
the things that comes out in the research that Rensburg did
was that there was kind of an agreement with the Times and
the Soviet Union that they would be doing positive reporting
for them just to get access.
Mr. Lee: For some news organizations, to be able to keep
their China bureau is also essential for them to be an
international news outlet.
For example, the CBC, the
Canadian Broadcasting Company, at one time, they were
scheduled to air a documentary about the persecution of
Falun Gong.
And immediately, their Beijing bureau were
visited by security officials. So, at the last minute, they
actually pulled the documentary.
It was such a hassle that
they did not have time to change the lower third on screen.
And now it's unfortunately even worse because few large
companies probably control 90 percent of the media in the
U.S.
And if you actually look into it, the vast majority of
them have huge business entities in China; theme parks,
hotels, various investments in China.
It's no wonder that
there is a conflict of interest there, and there's no wonder
also why many news organizations shy away from the most
sensitive issues in China.
Mr. Jekielek: So, Leon, there's been a lot of talk of a
boycott of the Beijing Olympic games in 2022.
Now some
countries, including the U.S. have announced a diplomatic
boycott because of, at least one, if not three genocides.
And I mentioned, Xinjiang, Uyghur people, Tibetans, and of
course Falun Gong, which you're talking about, which many
people also believe is genocide.
My question is this, is
this still happening today? What you've described is not a
historical film.
Mr. Lee: Not at all.
The persecution against Falun Gong
started in 1999 and has continued to this day. When talking
about the boycotting of the Beijing Olympics, it reminds me
of something quite puzzling.
In almost all these official
statements, people mentioned the Uyghurs, people mentioned
other groups that were persecuted.
But rarely people mentioned Falun Gong. But it's very
important to point this out because the methods that was
perfected in the persecution of Falun Gong have later been
used in targeting other groups, including the Uyghurs.
If the world stood up against the crackdown on Falun Gong 20
years ago, we would be in a very different world today.
Perhaps we wouldn't have so much persecution against other
groups. Perhaps the cover up, the propaganda wouldn't be so
effective.
So that's why I think we cannot ignore the
persecution of Falun Gong anymore. It's certainly a right
step towards a diplomatic boycott.
But we cannot stop there.
Mr. Jekielek: Leon, I keep thinking back to the
title of the film, "Unsilenced."
And of course, the film is precisely
about stepping up as individuals to fight extreme censorship
and propaganda and so forth.
And I know there's a lot of
people around the world, in the United States and frankly
everywhere, this film will resonate with at this moment.
Mr. Lee: Absolutely.
For me, this is much more than a human
rights story in China. It is on one hand about how the
propaganda machine, the censorship, the cover up, that's
happening in China and how it directly relates to our daily
lives here in America.
For example, if there was no cover up
of the pandemic in the beginning, maybe we won't face such a
disaster nowadays worldwide.
But on the other hand, we often talk about how truth will
prevail, how powerful truth is. In reality, sometimes, I
would say truth is eternal, but lies are sometimes more
powerful, lies are more prevalent.
If you don't make a
conscious effort to seek out truth, to speak the truth,
sometimes you can be surrounded by lies to a point that you
can no longer tell apart truth from lies.
So, if we look at people in China, as you see in the film,
the length they're willing to go to speak the truth, I think
it's inspiring, to me at least.
The why and how in the west,
we need to stand up for the truth.
Sometimes there's a cost
to speak the truth, but in no way, it can compare to the
cost and the risks people like Wang take in the film,
practitioners in China take.
So, if they can do what they do
in China, facing torture, facing arrest, I think we can do
better in the west.
Mr. Jekielek: So Leon, I also wanted to mention to everyone
that this film is going to be appearing in many cities
across America in theaters.
I understand the number's been
reduced somewhat originally. It was 60 cities across North
America. But now, virus policy may be changing that. How can
people get up to it?
Mr. Lee: We'll have a limited theatrical release across
North America from January 21st.
You can go to
unsilencedmovie.com to check the list of the theaters as we
are going to have a release. You can also leave your email
there and you'll be the first to know when the movie comes
to you.
Mr. Jekielek: So Leon, I understand you've actually done
some public screenings of the film.
What has been the
response thus far?
Mr. Lee: The film has been in the film festival circuit for
some time, and I was very happy to see the response.
For
example, we won the Audience Award at the Austin Film
Festival.
And from what I could see, half of the audience
were shedding tears after watching the film, and they were
telling me how profoundly moved they were by the story, by
their courage, their perseverance, and how inspired they
were after seeing the film.
So, I hope that more people will
have a chance to see this film and learn the incredible
story of these young students and the American reporter.
Mr. Jekielek: Well, I can also echo that sentiment. I can
say that for at least an hour after I watched it, I felt
very deeply moved, and it's stayed with me since.
Well, Leon
Lee, it's such a pleasure to have you on.
Mr. Lee: Thank you.
