Art, Activism and Ai Weiwei - Alison Klayman’s "Never Sorry"

Ai Weiwei sends the authorities a message from his hospital bed after suffering a cerebral haemorrhage following a blow from a policeman in Alison Klayman's documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry.

Alison Klayman's documentary Never Sorrry, about China's most controversial contemporary artist Ai Weiwei, has garnered acclaim around the world and was short-listed for the Best Documentary Academy Award this year (unfortunately it didn't make the final list of nominees). After screening at last year's Melbourne International Film Festival it enjoyed a brief theatrical season at Melbourne's Nova Cinema. It has now been released on DVD in Australia by Madman.

I interviewed Klayman when she was in Melbourne last year, and reviewed her film for the Dec-Jan issue of RealTime magazine. The RealTime article is reproduced below - you can see the piece in its original context here.




Art, Activism and Ai Weiwei - Alison Klayman’s Never Sorry

Ai weiwei has been accused of bigamy, charged with tax evasion, condemned as a subversive and dismissed as a clown. Although infamous as the artist the Chinese authorities love to hate, his critics are by no means only from government ranks.

Newsbites: Sheffield, Censorship, Jia Zhangke’s Beijing Cinema, and Salacious Gossip

Me, sorry? Never! The new documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry has been getting the Chinese embassy in London hot under the collar.

It’s been a very long time between posts here at Screening China. Fear not, the blog is still alive – I’ve just been a little swamped by thesis and article writing, various curating duties and five weeks in China. There’s been a lot going on in Chinese film, so here’s a quick round up of news over the past month or two (apologies for the fact that some of this is quite old!)

Chinese Delegation Pulls Out of Sheffield Doc/Fest

Earlier this week the Chinese diplomatic service launched another offensive in its campaign to confirm the image of the Chinese government as repressive, censorial and generally uptight by demanding that Sheffield Doc/Fest, one of the world’s best known documentary festivals, drop Alison Klayman’s Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry from its program. RealScreen reports:

Newsbites – Chinese Film Wins Gong at the Berlin Film Festival and More Online Restrictions on the Way

A quick roundup of China-related film news from last few weeks, including just-announced awards from the Berlin Festival Festival.

Wang Quan'an's White Deer Plain.

Wang Quan’an’s White Deer Plain Collects Berlin Award
The Berlin International Film Festival winds up today, and the festival awards have now been posted on the festival’s website. There was just one feature from mainland China in this year’s competition – Wang Quan’an’s White Deer Plain  (Bai lu yuan), described by the festival as an “epic that takes place towards the end of imperial China in a period of dramatic political and social upheaval.” White Deer Plain managed to pick up one gong – the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Achievement, awarded to cinematographer Lutz Reitemeier for his lensing on the film.

Newsbites: China Fails to Make the Oscars, Asian Film Award Nominees, and Mainland 2011 Box Office Results

Wei Te-sheng's Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale made the short-list of Oscar nominees, but failed to gain a final nomination.

It’s been a disappointing result for China in the Oscar sweepstakes this week, with no Chinese titles making the nominee list for best foreign film. The complete list of nominations was announced on Tuesday (24 January). The mainland’s hopes were pinned on Zhang Yimou’s new epic about the Nanjing massacre, The Flowers of War, starring Christian Bale. As reported in the last Newsbites post, the film was the highest grossing domestic title in China last year, but it failed to even make the short list of Oscar nominees.

Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale, directed by rising star of the Taiwan industry Wei Te-sheng, made the shortlist but failed to gain a final nomination. You can see the complete list of Oscar nominees here.