Participants ask for their films not to be shown at IndieChina event, which was due to launch this weekend
An independent film festival due to start in New York this weekend has been cancelled after several film-makers pulled out due to harassment from the Chinese authorities, raising concerns about transnational repression.
The inaugural IndieChina film festival was planned to take place between 8 and 15 November. But on 5 November the festival’s curator, Zhu Rikun, posted on Facebook that he had been forced to cancel 80% of the planned screenings because film-makers had pulled out.
Zhu said the requests primarily came from directors based in China, who cited “personal reasons” for changing their mind about screening their films. Directors based outside China said their families back home had been contacted by the Chinese authorities, a common way of applying pressure to people beyond its borders.
Zhu, who is based in New York, said a colleague at his studio in Beijing had been taken away for questioning by the authorities and told not to work with him.
