China: Authorities Shut Down Film Festival in New York

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Chinese authorities harassed several dozen Chinese film directors and producers, as well as their families in China, causing them to pull films from the inaugural IndieChina Film Festival in New York City, Human Rights Watch said today. On November 6, 2025, the festival’s organizer, Zhu Riku, announced that the film festival, scheduled for November 8-15, had been “suspended.” “The Chinese government reached around the globe to shut down a film festival in New York City,” said Yalkun Uluyol, China researcher at Human Rights Watch. “This latest act of transnational repression demonstrates the Chinese government’s aim to control what the world sees and learns about China.” Chiang Seeta, a Chinese artist and activist, reported that nearly all participating directors in China faced intimidation. Even directors abroad, including those who are not Chinese nationals, reported that their relatives and friends in China were receiving threatening calls from police, said Chiang. On November 1, the organizers issued an announcement on social media saying they had received messages from some film directors and producers and their families about Chinese government harassment: “We are deeply concerned about the situation. ... [I]f you are under pressure not to attend the festival ... we fully understand and respect it.” By November 4, more than two-thirds of participating films had cancelled their screenings. After the festival was suspended, Zhu issued a statement that the decision was not out of fear, but rather to “stop harassment of ... directors, guests, former staff, and volunteers associated with the festival, including my friends and family.” Independent film festivals in China have faced intensifying crackdowns over the past decade, Human Rights Watch said.

The Chinese authorities have shut down all three major independent film festivals in China: Yunfest, founded in 2003; the China Independent Film Festival, founded in 2003; and Beijing Independent Film Festival, founded in 2006. When the authorities shut down the last screening of the Beijing Independent Film Festival in 2014, they cut off electricity from the venue, confiscated documents from the organizer’s office, and forced the organizers to sign a paper promising not to hold the festival. Many festival organizers have tried without success to adapt, for instance by changing their format to screenings at multiple venues.

The 14th China Independent Film Festival was shuttered in 2018, the last time such a festival took place in China.

The Xi Jinping government’s tightening of ideological controls has resulted in the prosecution and imprisonment of a number of filmmakers and has caused many others to go into exile. In 2014, a court sentenced Shen Yongping, a prominent filmmaker whose documentary about the constitution is critical of the government, to one year in prison for alleged “illegal business activity.” A court in January 2025 sentenced Chen Pinlin, known as Plato, to three-and-a-half years in prison for allegedly “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” after he made a documentary about the “white paper protests” during Covid-19 lockdowns. In April, the authorities confiscated equipment and materials from Guo Zhenming, a Chinese artist, for filming Uyghur folk music in Xinjiang, where Uyghurs and other Muslims have experienced severe repression, and fined him 75,000 yuan (about US$10,550) for not providing his screenplay synopsis to relevant departments. In Hong Kong, the authorities have banned 13 films from being shown on “national security” grounds. Transnational repression can be defined as government efforts to silence or deter dissent by committing human rights abuses against their own nationals living abroad, their families at home, or members of the country’s diaspora.

The Chinese government’s transnational repression of the arts has not been limited to film. Chinese officials interfered with an exhibition in Bangkok and censored artwork by Uyghur, Tibetan, and Hongkonger artists in August. “Governments should confront Chinese officials about their increasing use of abusive actions across international borders,” Uluyol said. “Film festivals and other art venues should band together with government support to counteract the Chinese government’s growing long arm to influence free expression abroad.”.

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References:

• https://www.hrw.org/asia/china-and-tibet
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