Winner of the Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival is this insightful and powerful documentary about China’s most popular and yet controversial artist Ai Weiwei. Making waves at nearly every festival in the circuit (read our own Andrew Crump’s glowing review of it), his story really is one that needs to be heard.
The trailer for the “theatrical release” can be found on the Apple website (read: no embed code yet) and it gives you a good idea of Ai Weiwei’s struggles, but to compliment it, we also recommend you can also take a look at the spotlight trailer, with intro and commentary from director Alison Klayman, for the film while it was at Sundance…
Named by ArtReview as the most powerful artist in the world, Ai Weiwei is China’s most celebrated contemporary artist, and its most outspoken domestic critic. In April 2011, when Ai disappeared into police custody for three months, he quickly became China’s most famous missing person. First-time director Alison Klayman gained unprecedented access to the charismatic artist, as well as his family and others close to him, while working as a journalist in Beijing. In the years she filmed, government authorities shut down Ai’s blog, beat him up, bulldozed his newly built studio, and held him in secret detention–while Time magazine named him a runner-up for 2011’s Person of the Year. Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Sundance 2012, her compelling documentary portrait is the inside story of a passionate dissident for the digital age who inspires global audiences and blurs the boundaries of art and politics.
Alison Klayman’s film will be making it to limited theaters starting July 27th, 2012.
One Comment
Andrew Crump
Absolutely mesmerizing documentary, this. If you get the chance to see it, do, and if you don’t, then the joke’s on you.