Mongrel Media Presents
A Film by Alison Klayman (91 min., USA, 2012) Language: English Special Jury Prize Documentary Sundance Film Festival 2012 Official Selection Berlin International Film Festival 2012 Distribution Publicity Bonne Smith 1028 Queen Street West Star PR Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M6J 1H6 Tel: 416‐488‐4436 Tel: 416‐516‐9775 Fax: 416‐516‐0651 Fax: 416‐488‐8438 E‐mail:
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Director’s Statement
by Alison Klayman The reason I wanted to make a film about Ai Weiwei was because I wanted to make a movie about a creative and principled artist, willing to make calculated risks to push society to grapple with its own shortcomings. He is a charismatic figure who in his personal dynamism embodies the multitude of experiences and realities in China, a sign of how China has changed and how there is more change to come. Which is why a lot went through my mind last April when, after over two years of filming and several months into the edit, Weiwei disappeared into police custody without any formal charges or indication when he would be released. For weeks I stayed up late into the night in New York, so that I could be awake as morning came to Beijing. Media requests were constant. I monitored every development, keeping Skype signed on near my bed when I slept, and was rarely far from a Twitter feed. Ai’s 81‐day detention amplified his story symbolically and in the press. His release made news around the world, and people who may never have consciously heard his name suddenly became familiar with his face and his cause. Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry brings the man and his history into the focus. I started filming Weiwei in 2008, just after his work on the Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium and his subsequent denunciation of the Games as Party propaganda made him an international figure for the first time. The years since have been even more transformational. Having never used a computer before 2005, Weiwei began a blog remarkable for its frank and politically incendiary opinions. The government shut his blog down in 2009, but by then, he had already established himself as an online icon—a role he continues to play through Twitter. That same year, Weiwei opened his largest solo museum exhibition in Munich, and, after a lifetime of vowing he didn’t want children, he also became a father. Of course, there was his arrest in 2011 to cap everything off. These years are a pinnacle for a man who already experienced several significant epochs in his life. I want to give people a chance to spend time with Weiwei, listen to his voice and his opinions, see his flaws, and experience the conditions of his life. The idea is to allow audiences to evaluate Weiwei’s choices and, I hope, to be inspired by his courage and humanity. But Never Sorry is not just about Weiwei, or China. I hope the film will move audiences to interrogate themselves. What is my vision for a better future? What would I risk to express myself? The most powerful impact this film can have is inspiring a new crop of outspoken artists, activists and citizens, with a strong vision for improving the future in their respective societies.
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Film Synopsis
Ai Weiwei is at once China’s most celebrated contemporary artist and its most vocal domestic critic. Born into China’s revolutionary intelligentsia, Ai’s biography often parallels the course of modern Chinese history. In 2008, his denunciation of the Olympic Games shifted his position to political detractor. His investigation into collapsed schools and the deaths of more than 5,000 schoolchildren following the May 2008 Sichuan earthquake gave rise to Ai’s most public conflict with the Chinese government to date. The film begins in December 2008 when Ai initiates his Sichuan investigation and falls under increasing government scrutiny. Surveillance escalates to a late night police raid in August 2009 during which Ai is assaulted. One month later, Ai undergoes emergency brain surgery in Munich while installing his first major solo exhibition in the West. This tangible evidence of police brutality is juxtaposed with his moving installation “Remembering,” made of 9,000 backpacks to memorialize schoolchildren killed in the quake. Ai’s personal and public search for justice leads him to multiple trips to Sichuan’s capital Chengdu to file a brutality complaint against the local police and to investigate the schoolchildren’s deaths. Throughout, Ai is trailed and monitored by plainclothes officers. Concurrently, Ai’s artistic career on a meteoric rise, and he gets a prestigious commission to fill the Turbine Hall at London’s Tate Modern with a new work. Ai is also on a personal journey, and the film captures never-before recorded interviews with his mother and brother. They discuss the legacy of Ai’s father, Ai Qing, China’s foremost modern poet, and Ai’s youth spent in China’s remote Xinjiang province as punishment for his father’s alleged political transgressions. Friends recount the bohemian decade he spent in 1980s New York City, and his mid-’90s return to Beijing where he invigorated the burgeoning avant-garde scene. In presentday China, Ai’s family fears for his safety. His mother wishes he would focus on art. He is also a first-time father, at age 52, to a son Ai Lao who is the product of an extramarital affair. Ai Lao’s mother hopes Ai will continue to play a significant role in her son’s life. Nonetheless, Ai continues to challenge the government and to produce art. In 2010, Ai realizes his most ambitious project to date when he pours 100 million hand-made porcelain sunflower seeds into Tate Modern. The seeds symbolize the sum of his past efforts and the power of mass connection and mass participation. The film climaxes with Ai surrounded by his hopes for the future: his son and 100 million symbols of collaboration and creativity. Soon after, China strikes back with devastating force. Against the backdrop of a nation-wide crackdown on dissent in early 2011, Ai witnesses the shocking demolition of his Shanghai studio and the unlawful 81-day detention of the artist himself. These dramatic events make Ai a bigger symbol now than ever, and as the film closes his defiant spirit faces its greatest challenge yet: how to navigate the strict conditions of his release.
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Interview with Ai Weiwei January 7, 2012 Q: How does it feel to be the subject of a film at Sundance and be unable to attend? Ai Weiwei: This film is about freedom of expression. The fact that I cannot be part of this festival becomes the strongest argument for the need for the film. It gives a strong argument about why this kind of documentary is important, why the voice needs to be protected, and why my efforts, along with those of Alison and other documentary filmmakers, to protect freedom of expression and basic human rights, are very valuable. I’m very happy this film will be presented in the most respectable documentary film festival, Sundance. Of course I would be very happy to come to be there with Alison, and with the audience and the committee there, so we could freely discuss matters around this issue. Q: What would you like people to do after seeing the film? Ai Weiwei: I think (by seeing the film) the audience will first have some knowledge about who I am and what kind of issues I am always concerned about as an artist. I think they should really think that freedom of expression is very valuable, and they should treasure this right. In many areas and locations around the world, you can completely lose your freedom simply because you are asking for freedom. You even never have a chance to speak out. In many developed societies people take freedom of expression for granted, but at the same time it would be a crime to be ignorant of the efforts that other people make for this right. Humans share all values as a common property. You cannot pretend you don’t know it, and you can’t say it has nothing to do with me. That would only make you as a very selfish person and very shortsighted. What made me a recognizable figure is only because I do have an issue, and also because I successfully use the Internet, to a degree. I can communicate more freely through the Internet and media to carry out the message, so this is very important‐ you have the message and you have a way to carry it out. I hope people watching this they also can realize that, I think today we are living in a very different world and today we do have new possibilities, and we can make the world into a better place for everybody.
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Q: How does the documentary make China look? Ai Weiwei: The documentary is about reality, it’s about the reality that has been existing in this piece of land for decades. China is developing itself, but in certain cases such as the judicial system and freedom of speech, it has hardly developed. It’s still under very strong control. But I think China cannot afford not to change. It takes time, but only when there’s pressure, when there’s a demand for it. We all know humans are not going to change by themselves if there’s no pressure there. Q: What would Chinese audiences think of the film? Ai Weiwei: I don’t think it will ever be seen by the public in mainland China, only a small public will ever see it in China. Only on YouTube or online, which is just a few people, less than 0.1 percent who technically can jump over the Great Firewall and watch it. But still that’s very important, the effort is important only because it’s so difficult. I think it’s good for anybody to see it, the government and officials and police should see it. They should understand…they should face the reality, and to understand what is in the struggle. Otherwise they have no way to evaluate themselves. Because they think all Western people hate China or are trying to overthrow the government, but they don’t really look at each individual case to see what is the intention and how to make it better. I think this film will help make it better. I think this is very important to let people understand the situation.
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Director’s Bio
Alison Klayman (Director/Producer/Cinematographer) is a freelance journalist and documentary filmmaker. While living in China from 2006-2010, she produced radio and television feature stories for PBS Frontline, National Public Radio, AP Television and others. She also began shooting her debut documentary feature, AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY, following the artist/activist for two years and gaining unprecedented access to his life and work. The film was awarded a Special Jury Prize for Spirit of Defiance at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. When Chinese authorities detained Ai for three months in Spring 2011, Klayman made many media appearances to speak about Ai and her work, including on CNN International and The Colbert Report. She has since been named a Sundance Documentary Producing Fellow, and included in Filmmaker Magazine’s annual list of “25 New Faces of Independent Film.” She grew up in the Philadelphia area and graduated from Brown University in 2006 with an honors B.A. degree in History. There she won both a C.V. Starr National Service Fellowship, and an Associated Press College Radio Award for General Reporting. She speaks Mandarin Chinese and Hebrew.
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Notable Cast Member Bios
FAMILY Ai Dan (艾丹): Novelist. Ai Weiwei’s younger brother, born 1962 in Xinjiang Province while the family was in domestic exile. Gao Ying (高瑛): Ai Weiwei’s mother (born 1933), married to poet Ai Qing (). In 2003 she published an autobiography about her life with Ai Qing.
During her son’s detention and subsequent harassment by authorities, she has been very vocal. She wrote an open letter to the people of China explaining, among other things, why she took down a photo in her house of Chinese President Hu Jintao: After Ai Qing (艾青) passed away, Hu Jintao, who was then already a member of the Politburo [of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China], came to see me as a representative of the central leadership, to convey kindness on behalf of the leaders. … After Ai Weiwei was disappeared in April, the family heard nothing of him. Looking at the picture I had taken with Hu Jintao that was hanging in my house made me uncomfortable. … So, I took down that photo and replaced it with a photo of our whole family. Ai Weiwei was inexplicably detained at the airport, and we had no idea where he was taken to. Is it fair to casually turn a person into an enemy, and an object of hatred? I have these words for the authorities: creepy, crooked, evil.
Lu Qing (路青): Ai Weiwei’s wife, married for over 16 years. Born in Shenyang in 1964, she graduated from the high school attached to the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) and then from CAFA’s Lithograph department for university. She had many solo and group exhibitions in Asia and Europe throughout the 1990s, and participated in the FUCK OFF show in Shanghai in 2000. In an ongoing performance, Lu Qing has been applying calligraphic marks to a bolt of silk since 1997. During and after Ai’s detention in April 2011, Lu became a prominent voice calling for her husband’s freedom and against the government’s use of secret detentions. On November 29, 2011, she was brought in for questioning for over 3 hours. Since then, she has also been restricted from traveling outside Beijing.
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Wang Fen (王芬): Mother of Ai Weiwei’s only child, Ai Lao (艾老， born February 2009). Wang Fen trained as an actress but works as a film editor now, contributing to many of Ai Weiwei’s underground documentaries. PROMINENT CHINESE ARTISTS/CULTURAL FIGURES IN THE FILM: Chen Danqing (陈丹青): Chen Danqing has been a friend of Ai Weiwei since they first met in New York in the 1980s. Like Ai, he is a renowned artist and public intellectual. Three years after the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, 16‐ year‐old Chen was sent to the countryside in Jiangxi Province for five years. He excelled in oil painting to the point that in 1978, with only a middle‐school education, he was admitted to the master’s program at the China Central Adacemy of Fine Arts. He moved to the United States in 1982 and remained for almost 20 years. He became an American citizen in 1994. Chen returned to Beijing and was a supervisor at the Academy of Arts and Design at Qinghua University. Frustrated with the Academy’s policies for student and professorial qualification, he decided to quit his position at Qinghua in 2005. In 2007, Chen published a book with Ai titled “Interviews Not About Art.” Isaac Stone Fish wrote about Chen in the LA Times on May 1, 2011: “One of China's most famous public intellectuals, Chen is not so much an activist as an eloquent and ambivalent dissenter. He criticizes the party's grasp on history and expression and belittles China's other artists for refusing to speak out. ‘The thing that makes me sad is Beijing becomes interesting because of people like Ai, and now he's disappeared,’ said Chen, speaking in a friend's spacious loft studio. He gives official speeches and was a consultant to film director Zhang Yimou during the Olympics; this and his decades of accumulated respect in society allow him to criticize with near impunity.
Feng Boyi (冯博一): Born in Beijing in 1960, Feng is an independent curator and critic. Among his most important shows are the 1st Guangzhou Triennial and the FUCK OFF exhibition he co‐curated with Ai Weiwei in 2000. He also worked with Ai on the seminal underground book trilogy, the Black White and Gray Cover Books.
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Gu Changwei (顾长卫): Filmmaker and cinematographer, graduate of the 1982 class of the Beijing Film Academy. He collaborated with classmates Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou on their films, include Red Sorghum (红高粱) and Farewell My Concubine (霸王别姬), which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography. Gu has also worked with American directors, including Robert Altman and Joan Chen. Gu began directing films in 2005 with Peacock, which won the Jury Grand Prix‐Silver Bear at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival He Yunchang (何云昌): Performance artist, born in Kunming, China in 1967. Notable works include "Wrestling: One and One Hundred" (2001), in which He wrestled with one hundred people in a row (82 defeats and 18 wins). On September 23, 2006, He performed “The Rock Touring Around Great Britain”, where he picked up a rock in the British town of Boulmer and walked counterclockwise around the country until he could return said rock to the very same spot — more than six months later. While Ai Weiwei was detained, He organized this photograph in secret as a protest against Ai’s disappearance (a photo of Ai Weiwei is posted over every person’s nipples and genitals):
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Hsieh “Sam” Tehching (谢德庆)
Performance artist, born in Taiwan in 1950. Hsieh came to the US in 1974 and lived as an illegal immigrant in New York for 14 years until he was granted amnesty in 1988. He did several remarkable “One Year Performances” in this time period, many of which were recently exhibition in a retrospective at the MoMA in New York in 2009: One Year Performance 1978–1979 (Cage Piece): For one year beginning September 29, 1978, Hsieh locked himself in a 11′6″ × 9′ × 8' wooden cage, furnished only with a wash basin, lights, a pail, and a single bed. During the year, he was not allowed to talk, to read, to write, or to listen to radio and TV. A lawyer, Robert Projansky, notarized the entire process and made sure the artist never left the cage. A friend came daily to deliver food and remove the artist's waste. One Year Performance 1980–1981 (Time Clock Piece): For one year, from April 11, 1980 through April 11, 1981, Hsieh punched a time clock every hour on the hour. Each time he punched the clock, he took a single picture of himself. Art / Life: One Year Performance 19831984 (Rope Piece): In this performance, Hsieh and Linda Montano spent one year between 4 July 1983 and 4 July 1984 tied to each other with an 8‐foot‐long (2.4 m) rope. They had to stay in a same room while not allowed to touch each other until the end of the one year period. Hung Huang (洪晃): Hung has been referred to in a CNN article as “China’s answer to Oprah Winfrey and Anna Wintour.” She is an influential cultural figure in China, running China Interactive Media (publisher of a fashion magazine called iLook), owning a store featuring Chinese designers and blogging/microblogging with humor and intelligence to over 2.5 million followers. Her mother Zhang Hanzhi was Mao Zedong’s English teacher, and served as his interpreter during Nixon and Kissinger’s historic visit to China. Hung’s mother was later accused of collaborating with the “Gang of Four” and placed under house arrest for two years. Hung went to high school in the US and college at Vassar, and is an American passport holder. She sees herself as a Chinese patriot and works hard to bring her country’s culture into the global, interconnected 21st century.
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RongRong (荣荣): Photographer, born in China’s southern province of Fujian in 1968. In 1993 he moved into Beijing’s “East Village” where he was influenced by Ai Weiwei, and began a long‐term photographic study on the lives of the young avant‐garde artists who were living there. In 1996 he established “New Photo” magazine and in 2000 started to make collaborative works with his wife inri, a Japanese artist. Together they established “Three Shadows Photography Art Centre” in Ai Weiwei’s neighborhood Caochangdi in Beijing in 2006. The center is the first space in China devoted to contemporary photography and video, and is housed in a breathtaking structure designed by Ai Weiwei.
Zhang Hongtu (张宏图): Zhang is a Chinese artist based in New York. He was born in 1943 in Gansu Province, China, to a traditional Muslim family, and moved to the US in 1982. In 1987 he was part of the Chinese United Overseas Artists Association, along with Ai Weiwei and others. He works in a variety of media including painting, sculpture, collage and digital imaging. He says he feels “reborn as an artist” since moving to the United States.
Ma Ti Hua.”
Zuoxiao Zuzhou (左小诅咒): Zuzhou (real name Wu Hongjin) is a Beijing‐based rock musician, poet and contemporary artist. He was a founding participant in the early ‘90s avant‐garde artist community “East Village” in Beijing, inspired by Ai Weiwei. He composed the music for many of Ai’s underground documentaries, including “Lao
During a performance at the 2011 Modern Sky Folk and Poetry Festival in China, he displayed the message “Free Ai Weiwei” on a large screen. Soon afterward, authorities detained him for over 12 hours at the airport in Shanghai.
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Ai Weiwei: Timeline
1957: Born in Beijing to poet Ai Qing and his wife Gao Ying. Ai Qing studied painting in Paris in the 1930s, was a fervent supporter of the nascent Communist movement, and his modernist poetry defined a generation. 1958: Ai Qing falls out of favor with Communist Party and is branded a “Rightest.” Sent into exile, first to Beidahuang, then to far-western Xinjiang Province. 1962: Younger brother Ai Dan is born in Xinjiang. 1966-76: Cultural Revolution. Ai Weiwei and his family suffer as “class enemies” and he is forced to do hard labor alongside his father. Ai Qing worked as a public toilet cleaner, among other jobs. 1976: Ai Qing’s name is restored after Mao’s death, and the family returns to Beijing. 1978: Ai Weiwei enters Beijing Film Academy, and in following years he took part in exhibitions held by the avant-garde group "Xingxing (The Stars)" and witnessed the crackdown on leaders of the “Democracy Wall Movement” of 1978-79. 1981: Ai Weiwei leaves for the United States. He first studies at University of Pennsylvania, then UC Berkeley, and in 1983 moves to New York to attend Parsons. He did not finish his degree there, but went on to spend the next 10 years living as an artist and working various jobs in the city. He hosted young Chinese artists and intellectuals who passed through, befriended Allen Ginsberg, and took over 10,000 photographs of his experiences. Many of the photographs focus on protest movements of the time, including the Tompkins Square Park Riots of 1988. 1985: Ai Weiwei’s first solo exhibition at the Ethan Cohen Gallery, entitled “Old Shoes Safe Sex.” 1989: Tian’anmen Square student protests and government crackdown. Ai Weiwei watches from New York, and participates in a hunger strike sit-in outside the UN. 1993: Moves back to Beijing, in part to spend time with his ailing father. 1994: Published the influential underground art book the “Black Cover Book”, following with a “White Cover Book” (1995) and “Gray Cover Book” (1997). Introduces and explores Western contemporary artists in Chinese, and highlights young avant-garde artists in China. 1996: Ai Qing dies at the age of 86. Hu Jintao visits Ai Weiwei’s mother, Gao Ying, to pay his respects.
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1999: Ai Weiwei designs and builds his own home-studio in Caochangdi on the outskirts of central Beijing. This begins his career as a successful architect. 2000: Ai Weiwei curates the influential and controversial exhibition “FUCK OFF” (in Chinese, 不合作方式 or “Uncooperative Attitude”) in Shanghai. 2003: Ai Weiwei first meets Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron and begins collaborating on a design entry for the 2008 Olympic Stadium. Their creation, which came to be known as the “Bird’s Nest” Stadium, was chosen that year as the winning design out of 13 submissions. 2007: June: Ai travels to Kassel for documenta XII. Ai undertakes the monumental project, Fairytale, for which he invited 1,001 Chinese to the German city. He also installed a large-scale installation, Template, composed of salvaged Ming and Qing-era doors and window frames. A windstorm knocked down the 39foot structure; the artist and exhibition staff elected to leave the work in its fallen state, rebranding it “Collapsed Template.” August 9: In an article published in the Guardian, Ai Weiwei denounces the Bird’s Nest Stadium and the Beijing Olympics as political propaganda. 2008: May 12: 7.9 magnitude earthquake hits the town of Wenchuan in western Sichuan Province causing the collapse of thousands of buildings; more than 7,000 classrooms in the region and over 5,000 schoolchildren die because of “tofu construction” in primary and elementary schools; school collapse became of a symbol of government malfeasance and initial attempts at a cover-up provoke outraged responses. June: Ai visits the devastated region and is appalled. He hopes to use the students’ names in an artwork to commemorate the tragedy, but officials tell him that the information is a “state secret.” He puts a call on his blog and individuals begin volunteering to help investigate and document the situation. The Sichuan Earthquake Names Project is born, an effort conducted by more than 50 researchers and volunteers to collect the names of the deceased students in towns across Sichuan province. August 8: The 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics begin. December: Director Alison Klayman first meets Ai Weiwei in Beijing and begins filming a 20-minute video for his show “Ai Weiwei: New York Photographs 1983 – 1993” at the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre.
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2009: March 28: Prominent Chinese writer and activist Tan Zuoren is arrested in his home in Chengdu on charges of “inciting subversion of state power.” This came three days after the online publication of the results from his and Xie Yuhui’s investigation into collapsed classrooms during the Sichuan earthquake. Tan and Xie’s document presented evidence of shoddy school construction and alluded to widespread government corruption at the local level. Tan’s arrest followed previous police incursions into his home and confiscation of computer disks, papers and materials related to the “5.12 Student Archive,” the working title for his investigation. Such intrusions caused the activist team to conclude the investigation two months prior to their originally proposed May 2009 end date. May 5: Government announces that 5,335 children died in collapsed schools during the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake. Publication of the official statistic does not include any information about the individual students and appears in response to Ai’s announcement that his Sichuan Earthquake Names Project has reached a final tally. The official toll of the earthquake was 68,712 dead with 18,500 listed as missing and presumed dead. May 12: One-year anniversary of the Sichuan Earthquake, and Ai Weiwei’s Sina.com blog (blog.sina.com.cn/aiweiwei) finishes posting the names of over 5,000 student victims. May 29: Shortly after midnight in Beijing, Ai’s personal blog shut down by authorities. The action came in the middle of the two-day Duanwu (“MidSummer”) Festival holiday, when many businesses and government offices in greater China were closed. Ai’s posts on May 26, 27 and 28 recounted several incidents of police surveillance, including phone tapping and tailing. Ai’s blog served as the online platform for project. Affiliated researchers travelled extensively within the affected region, recording their findings on Ai’s blog. May 31: Ai Weiwei joins Twitter, using the handle @aiww June 4: 20th anniversary of Tian’anmen Square Massacre. Many attributed the shuttering of Ai’s blog and other antagonistic gestures towards Ai as related to sensitivities heightened by these anniversaries, including the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic in China, to be celebrated in October 2009. August 12: At 3 a.m., local police beat Ai in his Chengdu hotel room. Ai was in town to serve as a witness on behalf of Tan Zuoren, along with several of his Chinese volunteers affiliated with the Sichuan Earthquake Names Project. All were temporarily detained, including Liu Yanping for over 48 hours. Ai agreed to testify at the trial at the suggestion of Tan Zuoren’s lawyer, who believed that the artist’s findings from the Sichuan Earthquake Names Project would aid in Tan’s defense.
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September 14: Ai enters Munich University Hospital where he receives treatment for a brain hemorrhage. Ai is in Munich to install his solo exhibition, “So Sorry,” at the Haus der Kunst, one of the largest museum shows dedicated to the artist to date. The show includes a new work called “Remembering,” a memorial installation consisting of 9,000 backpacks spelling out a sentence “She lived happily on this earth for 7 years.” The work is hung on the front facade of the museum. Ai leaves the hospital on September 21. October 12: “So Sorry” opens at Haus der Kunst. December 25: After one year waiting in detention for a trial, writer Liu Xiaobo is sentenced to 11 years in prison for the charge of “incitement to subversion of state power.” Liu has been a famous dissident, and in and out of prison, ever since the 1989 Tian’anmen Democracy movement. In 2008 he cowrote “Charter ’08,” a manifesto calling for political liberalization that was signed my many prominent Chinese intellectuals. Ai Weiwei signed “Charter ‘08” after Liu’s arrest in solidarity, and briefly made an appearance outside the court where he was sentenced. 2010: March: Ai Weiwei visits New York to appear on CNN’s Amanpour Show, and also a panel discussion at the Paley Center with Twitter’s founder Jack Dorsey. Both appearances are focused on the power of social media. April: Ai Weiwei returns to Chengdu to the local police station that dispatched the officers that hit him last August to file an official complaint and ask for them to investigate the incident. He tells his Twitter followers that he will be eating dinner at the same “lao ma ti hua” restaurant where he dined the night before his police counter (and the source of the name for his documentary film about the incident). Fans show up to join him and city police try to force the party indoors. July: Construction on Ai’s new Shanghai studios completed after 12 months of construction. The building measures over 2,000 square feet and cost nearly one million dollars. August: Ai Weiwei returns to Chengdu on the anniversary of his police encounter during Tan’s trial. His strategy this time is to file his request for a hearing in as many government offices as possible. October 8: The Norwegian Nobel Committee announces that Liu Xiaobo is the recepient of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. Ai Weiwei watches from his computer in London where he is installing 100 million hand-crafted ceramic porcelain sunflower seeds in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern. Ai speaks to press about the importance of the award. October 12: Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds opens at Tate Modern as part of The Unilever Series.
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October 15: Sunflower Seeds closed because concern of particles entering the air when visitors walk on the ceramic seeds. mid-October: Ai receives official notice from the Shanghai Municipal Government that his studio will be razed, but is given no firm demolition date. November 7: Ai’s Shanghai Studio hosts a river crab feast to “celebrate” the slated demolition of the artist’s studio. Beijing authorities place Ai under house arrest for the weekend. December 21: Ai prevented from leaving China at Beijing Capital Airport. Ai strongly suspects that he was prevented from leaving because Chinese officials were nervous he would attend the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony honoring activist Liu Xiaobo. December: Ai voted no. 13 on ArtReview’s Power 100 as the highest-ranking living artist. Bruce Nauman is the next highest rated at no. 17. Ai has made the list since 2006. 2011: January 11: Ai’s Shanghai Studio is demolished. April 3: Ai Weiwei is taken into custody at Beijing Capital Airport on the way to Hong Kong. In the same week, the State Departments of several major countries call for information about his whereabouts and his release, including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The Solomon Guggenheim Foundation begins a Change.org petition calling for Ai’s release that collects almost 150,000 signatures including the participation of many key museums. AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY director Alison Klayman becomes a key voice speaking out about Ai’s situation on various news outlets including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, NPR, BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera English and Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report. Protest gatherings called “1001 Chairs,” where supporters posed with empty chairs mimicking his work at dOCUMENTA in 2007, take place in dozens of cities in the US, Europe and Asia. May 4: Ai’s bronze public sculpture work Circle of Animals opens at Pulitzer Fountain, Grand Army Plaza, New York City. NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg delivers an impassioned address at the opening, saying: “We stand in solidarity with the billions of people who do not have the most fundamental of all human rights, the most cherished of all American values, and the most valuable of all New York City's riches: free expression." Soon after, Circle of
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Animals also opens at Somerset House, London, and at in August traveled to LACMA. June 22: Ai Weiwei is released by authorities to his home in Beijing after 81 days in detention where he was subjected to psychological torture, including two guards standing by his side 24 hours a day, even watching him in the bathroom or while he sleeps. He refuses to speak at length with media and fans gathered outside his home. Chinese authorities maintain he was being investigated for tax evasion by his company, Beijing Fake Cultural Development Ltd. State media also reports that he was granted bail on account of his "good attitude in confessing his crimes", willingness to pay back taxes, and his chronic illnesses. It soon emerges that his bail conditions include many restrictions: he cannot be active on social media, give interviews about the details of his detention, or travel outside Beijing for one year. October: Ai is named number 1 on ArtReview’s Power 100. He launches a solo exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, called Absent. Ai also collaborates via Skype with W Magazine to direct the cover photo shoot for their Art Issue. The photo spread depicts a Chinese model being arrested and taken to Rikers Island prison, where she is forced to disrobe and shower in front of the guards. November: Tax authorities deliver Ai Weiwei a bill amounting to $2.4 million USD in unpaid taxes and penalties, and a 2-week deadline to pay either the full amount or half the amount in order to continue challenging the legality of the bill. Ai and his supporters maintain the charges are politically motivated. Thousands of fans in China send him money, either by paying it directly to his account or folding cash into paper planes and throwing it over the walls of his home in Beijing. Major media around the globe cover the story, and once again throngs of reporters are regularly filming the activity in his home studio. Ai pays $1.2 million dollars and hopes to continue to fight the case. On November 29, Ai’s wife Lu Qing is brought in for questioning and released. She is now under the same travel restrictions as her husband. December: Ai Weiwei is runner-up for TIME Magazine’s “Person of the Year.” 2012: January 22: AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY premieres in the US Documentary competition at 2012 Sundance Film Festival.
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Selected Press: “Ai and I” by Rahul Jacob Financial Times, June 3, 2011 (Print Edition)
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Key Credits: AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY A film by Alison Klayman Presented by: United Expression Media In association with: MUSE Film and Television Filmed and directed by: Alison Klayman Edited by: Jennifer Fineran Music by: Ilan Isakov Contributing Producer: Colin Jones Producers: Alison Klayman Adam Schlesinger Executive Producers: Karl Katz Julie Goldman Andrew Cohen Cast (alphabetical): Hung Huang 洪晃 Ai Dan 艾丹 Li Zhanyang 李占洋 Ai Lao 艾老 Liu Yanping Ai Weiwei Lu Qing 路青 Lee Ambrozy Chen Danqing 陈丹青 Evan Osnos RongRong 荣荣 Ethan Cohen Feng Boyi 冯博一 Karen Smith Philip Tinari Gao Ying 高瑛 Wang Fen 王芬 Gu Changwei 顾长卫 Inserk Yang He Yunchang 何云昌 Zhang Hongtu 张宏图 Hsieh Tehching 谢德庆 Zuoxiao Zuzhou 左小诅咒 Huang Kankan 21
United Expression Media, Inc. (UEM) produces feature films, documentaries, and digital media projects with a focus on social engagement. The company’s primary concerns include freedom of expression, human rights and global democratic movements, the environment, and responses to the expanding socioeconomic gap. The feature‐length documentary film Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry is United Expression Media’s first project. As part of this project, UEM is also producing Ai Weiwei: The Never Sorry Interviews, a book‐length oral biography based on the film, which will be published in fall 2012. United Expression Media looks to entertain and inform audiences, but also to engage them in ongoing social action campaigns related to the projects they produce. The company is actively reviewing projects.
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MUSE Film and Television is the executive production company for AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, MUSE was founded on the belief that the film, digital and other kinetic media provide the ideal modes through which to gain a better appreciation of art. MUSE’s mission is to produce quality documentaries on visual art and culture complemented by an array of educational resources. Executive Director and founder of MUSE Film and Television, Karl Katz is a former Chairman for Special Projects at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Katz has over forty years experience producing documentaries on visual art and culture.
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Key Production Bios
Editor Jennifer Fineran is the editor and co‐producer of A Powerful Noise, which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival 2008. Other credits include Confederacy Theory for PBS Independent Lens; Everybody Knows...Elizabeth Murray, produced and directed by Academy Award‐nominee Kristi Zea; and documentary programming for MTV, Bravo and National Geographic Television. Music Ilan Isakov is a multi‐instrumentalist, songwriter and composer based in Philadelphia. He has written music for television, theatre and contemporary dance. A long‐time friend and collaborator of director Alison Klayman, he scored several of her documentary shorts including "Ai Weiwei: New York Photographs 1983‐1993." Never Sorry is his first feature‐length film score. Producer Alison Klayman is also the director, cinematographer and co‐editor of the film. Adam Schlesinger is an award‐winning independent film producer based in New York. He produced the Sundance Film Festival selections: Smash His Camera, which won for Best Director; Page One Inside the New York Times; and God Grew Tired of Us, winner of the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award. Executive Producers Andrew Cohen is an independent filmmaker, writer, and contributing editor for Art Asia Pacific magazine. He produced and co‐wrote the award‐winning Dealers Among Dealers and Killing Kasztner: The Jew who Dealt with the Nazis. Other credits include: Out of Ruins, The World Before Her, and Filling the Void. Julie Goldman has executive produced award‐winning documentaries, including Sundance Audience Award winner In the Shadow of the Moon and Sergio. Other credits include: Once in a Lifetime, Sketches of Frank Gehry, and Black Sun. She co‐founded Cactus Three and launched Motto Pictures, which produces high‐end documentaries and non‐fiction programming. Karl Katz has over 35 years experience in museum management. He has worked as The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Chairman for Special Projects, as founder/director of the Office of Film and Television, and as Executive Director
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of The Program for Art on Film. He founded MUSE Film and Television.
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