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Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

An account of the many tribulations that Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, known for his subversive art and political activism, endured between 2008 and 2011, from his rise to world fame via the Internet to his highly publicized arrest due to his frequent and daring confrontations with the Chinese authorities.

One Recluse

In June 2008, Yang Jia carried a knife, a hammer, a gas mask, pepper spray, gloves and Molotov cocktails to the Zhabei Public Security Branch Bureau and killed six police officers, injuring another police officer and a guard. He was arrested on the scene, and was subsequently charged with intentional homicide. In the following six months, while Yang Jia was detained and trials were held, his mother mysteriously disappeared. "One Recluse" is a documentary that traces the reasons and motivations behind the tragedy and investigates a trial process filled with shady cover-ups and questionable decisions. The film provides a glimpse into the realities of a government-controlled judicial system and its impact on the citizens’ lives.

Cockroach

In February 2019, the Hong Kong government proposed a bill that would have allowed the extradition of criminal suspects from Hong Kong to face trial in mainland China. The controversial bill sparked immediate outrage over widespread fear of arbitrary detention and politically motivated trials that would decimate Hong Kong’s autonomy under ‘one country, two systems.’ Protests escalated into epic pro-democracy demonstrations, in part led by young people connected via social media. COCKROACH, filmed during the height of the protests, captures the extraordinary intensity of an unprecedented era in Hong Kong’s history.

The Trainer

Jack Flex is broke, buff, and wildly delusional—but he’s got a dream: to sell his absurd invention, the Heavy Hat, on his mom’s favorite shopping channel. When a desperate producer gives him a shot, Jack’s web of lies—celebrity clients, Hollywood fame—starts to unravel. With just one week to turn fiction into fact, he sprints through L.A. in a chaotic quest for credibility, hope, and a shot at stardom.

CoroNation

As the first city hit in the global pandemic, Wuhan, with a population of 11 million, was placed under an unprecedented lockdown. The film showcases the incredible speed and power of China’s state machinery in its fight against the virus. On the other side of the scale is the crushing bureaucracy of that same machine.

Disturbing the Peace

"Disturbing the Peace" is a documentary of an incident during Tan Zuoren's trial on August 12, 2009. Tan Zuoren was charged with inciting subversion of state power. Chengdu police detained witnessed during the trial of the civil rights advocate, which is an obstruction of justice and violence. Tan Zuoren was charged as a result of his research and questioning regarding the 5.12 Wenchuan students' casualties and the corruption resulting poor building construction. Tan Zuoren was sentenced five years to prison.

Ordos 100

"Ordos 100" provides a picture of an Ai Weiwei at the pinnacle of his artistic fame, but not yet in the political hot water that was to give him a different kind of notoriety. The film centers on a grand architecture project in Ordos, to be designed by Ai Weiwei.

The Sand Storm

In the not-quite end-times, a woman, a man, a lover and a water smuggler navigate a tumultuous future city on the brink of a water shortage. A "low-fi sci-fi film" secretly made in China.

Fairytale

Fairytale chronicles the making of an installation-cum-performance of the same name. In 2007, Ai Weiwei invited 1001 Chinese citizens of varying ages and backgrounds to travel to Kassel, Germany, for one week each, all expenses paid. This film describes the many challenges facing the artist and his volunteers in coordinating the work.

Ai Weiwei's Appeal ¥15,220,910.50

Ai Weiwei’s Appeal ¥15,220,910.50 opens with Ai Weiwei’s mother at the Venice Biennial in the summer of 2013 examining Ai’s large S.A.C.R.E.D. installation portraying his 81 day imprisonment. The documentary goes onto chronologically reconstruct the events that occurred from the time he was arrested at the Beijing airport in April 2011 to his final court appeal in September 2012. The film portrays the day-to-day activity surrounding Ai Weiwei, his family and his associates ranging from consistent visits by the authorities, interviews with reporters, support and donations from fans, and court dates. The Film premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam on January 23, 2014.

Beijing: The Second Ring

Beijing: The Second Ring is a document of the two opposite views of traffic flow on 33 bridges along Beijing’s Second Ring. The entire piece is made up of 66 segments.

Beijing: The Third Ring

Beijing: The Third Ring is a document of the two opposite views of traffic flow on 55 bridges along Beijing’s Third Ring. The entire piece is made up of 110 segments.

Chang'an Boulevard

Shot in one-minute increments, Ai's video obsessively documents daily life along Chang'an Boulevard, a thriving road that bisects the capital city along its east-west axis. ("Chang'an" literally means "long peace.") Ai and his team of videographers stopped at 50-meter intervals to record each fixed shot. The result is an impassive yet revelatory videologue that charts the blood flow of Beijing through its supermodern heart to its impoverished extremities.

Rohingya

The Rohingya are an ethnic Muslim minority from Myanmar's Rakhine State who have suffered several decades of persecution by the Burmese government. Many fled to neighbouring Bangladesh and other countries in search of safety. Following widespread ethnic cleansing by the Burmese army in August 2017, a mass exodus of over 700,000 Rohingya took place from Myanmar to Cox's Bazar, where one million refugees now live. Filmed over several months in Cox's Bazar, Rohingya is an observational, poetic record of the community's everyday life, social rituals, and the camp's unique landscapes.

Sanhua

The documentary depicts a complete picture of a chain in the cat-trading industry. Since the end of 2009 when the government began soliciting expert opinion for the Animal Protection Act, the focus of public debate has always been on whether one should be eating cats or not, or whether cat-eating is a Chinese tradition or not, there are even people who would go as far as to say that the call to stop eating cat meat is "imposing the will of the minority on the majority". Yet the "majority" does not understand the complete truth of cat-meat trading chains: cat theft, cat trafficking, killing cats, selling cats, and eating cats.