Screening

About Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case

Rating:

Not rated Not rated

Year Released:

2013

Genres:

Documentary, Drama

Metadata:

Directed by Andreas Johnsen

This Danish documentary chronicles the infamous Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s period of incarceration for 81 days and his subsequent house arrest, as well as his artistic development and political activism. While filmmaker Andreas Johnsen had to stay within the government’s rules for Ai’s parole, she follows him through the changing seasons and records his physical, mental, emotional, and artistic recovery process. In defiance, Ai turns his Kafkaesque legal situation and constant government surveillance into a kind of cathartic art experience—turning oppression into optimism. He goes as far as recreating his jail cell in the installation S.A.C.R.E.D. In English and Mandarin with English subtitles.