Rebel News Podcast - SHEILA GUNN REID ｜ Unsilenced： Chinese-Canadian filmmaker on his new film about the persecution of Falun Gong

00:00:00.000 Oh hey Rebels, it's me, Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're listening to a free audio-only recording

00:00:04.380 of my weekly Wednesday night show, The Gunn Show. However, this is the internet, and the beauty of

00:00:08.380 that is that you can listen or watch whenever you feel like. Now tonight my guest is a new

00:00:15.900 face to Rebel News viewers, I think. His name is Leon Lee, and he's a Chinese-Canadian filmmaker,

00:00:24.460 and he's joining me today to talk about his new movie, Unsilenced, and it's about the plight

00:00:31.260 and persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China post the 1999 ban on the spiritual

00:00:39.880 practice, and it also delves into just how China manipulates the narrative around Falun Gong

00:00:49.820 so that we in the Western world never really hear what's happening to the practitioners

00:00:56.800 of Falun Gong. Now, if you like listening to the show, and I think you will, then you're

00:01:02.160 probably going to like watching it, but in order to watch, you need to be a subscriber

00:01:05.620 to Rebel News Plus. That's what we call our premium long-form TV-style shows here on Rebel

00:01:11.240 News. Subscribers get access to my show, which, you know, I obviously think is pretty good,

00:01:16.340 but you also get access to Ezra Levant's Nightly Ezra Levant Show, David Menzies' fun Friday

00:01:21.740 night show Rebel Roundup, Andrew Chapito's show, Andrew Says, and Kat and Nat's show, Misunderstood.

00:01:29.560 Gosh, that's a lot of stuff behind the paywall for only eight bucks a month. It's kind of a

00:01:36.580 deal. Just go to rebelnews.com slash subscribe or rebelnewsplus.com to become a member today.

00:01:44.540 You won't regret it. And just for our podcast listeners, you can save an extra 10% on our new

00:01:49.140 Rebel News Plus subscription by using the coupon code PODCAST when you subscribe. And if you like

00:01:55.960 the show, and again, I remain relatively confident that you do, leave a five-star review wherever you

00:02:02.020 find us because that's a great way to support the show without having to spend a dime, but it also

00:02:06.100 helps other people find the podcast and it helps us be higher in the podcast algorithm than, you know,

00:02:13.700 those taxpayer-subsidized CBC podcasts. Anyway, please enjoy this free audio-only version of my show and

00:02:20.420 tell your friends.

00:02:21.460 The atrocities committed against the Uyghurs were perfected by China against Falun Gong. Today, 0.98

00:02:42.080 you'll meet one Chinese-Canadian filmmaker who fought through intimidation and censorship to tell

00:02:47.320 their stories. I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.

00:02:51.140 1,000 Falun Gong practitioners protested peacefully in Beijing.

00:03:13.200 好像一下大uh

00:03:23.100 好像人生

00:03:23.840 欢迎

00:03:24.820 大준

00:03:25.400 翻 Air

00:03:26.800 反应

00:03:26.960 翻 Rei

00:03:29.060 翻 Air

00:03:29.160 翻 Energ

00:03:29.900 翻 Como

00:03:30.380 翻 Dou

00:03:32.300 翻

00:03:32.740 翻

00:03:34.340 翻

00:03:35.140 翻

00:03:36.240 翻

00:03:37.680 翻

00:03:39.720 翻

00:03:40.380 did you tune into any of the olympics from china i didn't because they're genocide olympics and it

00:04:02.740 was a moral choice not to give china the propaganda win they needed as they commit 0.97

00:04:07.400 large-scale human rights atrocities against religious and ethnic minorities right under

00:04:12.360 our noses abduction imprisonment rape torture and forced organ harvesting it's all happening

00:04:18.300 right now in china against falun gong and china has had an organized propaganda disinformation

00:04:25.240 and intimidation campaign to prevent the stories of falun gong persecution from making their way

00:04:31.280 into the western world's media today you're going to meet leon lee he's a chinese canadian filmmaker

00:04:37.760 whose new movie unsilenced tells the story of a university student in beijing who chose to speak

00:04:45.120 the truth about what was happening to falun gong practitioners like himself in china in the wake

00:04:50.260 of ccp outlawing the religious practice in 1999 here's leon in an interview we recorded sunday morning

00:04:57.180 joining me now is director leon lee he's the director of the new movie unsilenced he's joining

00:05:17.300 me from vancouver where last night it was saturday night he premiered his movie there leon before we

00:05:25.480 get into the movie itself why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself because you're quite a

00:05:30.760 prolific filmmaker with a focus on human rights yes i uh grew up in china i came to canada in 2006

00:05:40.660 and that's when i started my filmmaking career uh started with a documentary called the human harvest

00:05:48.960 about illegal organ trade in china and uh moving forward focusing on uh human rights issues in china

00:05:58.280 and unsilenced uh is my latest film so why don't you tell us a little bit about this film and and in

00:06:05.860 particular why you felt it needed to be made i know there's some strong overlaps between unsilenced

00:06:11.800 and human harvest based on the targets of the organ harvesting but why don't you tell us a little bit

00:06:17.800 about that silence is based on real life events when the chinese communist regime launched a brutal

00:06:25.920 crackdown against 100 million citizens a team of innocent students and the western reporter

00:06:33.400 joined forces to counter the government's propaganda and fight for freedom the film

00:06:40.480 uh we had a successful theatrical run in the u.s last month and we opened uh on february 25th in canada

00:06:49.840 so uh again it's about human rights issues in china and uh i feel it's a very timely film film because not

00:07:00.640 it's not only a shed light on uh human rights atrocities in china but also it speaks to the theme of

00:07:07.660 truth versus lies uh how what what should people do when there is government censorship

00:07:14.540 you know it's a it's a very relevant thing for our time now your movie focuses on the treatment of the

00:07:21.220 falun gong in china and in particular china making it illegal um in the late 1990s and the those who

00:07:29.940 stood up um for the ability to practice their religion to believe what they want to believe

00:07:35.800 and to think what they want to think without government overreach and i think the timeline is

00:07:42.200 very important because it really demonstrates the bravery of those activists whose stories you tell

00:07:49.460 in your movie because it was just 10 years after tiananmen square exactly uh the story happened

00:07:58.680 well it began in 1999 when uh wang uh who was a phd candidate at the prestigious chinghua university in

00:08:08.580 beijing and um he was actually a student leader and tapped by the communist party um to to join their

00:08:17.340 ranks in the future so he had he really had a bright future uh he was a practitioner of falun gong

00:08:23.520 but almost overnight after the government uh banned falun gong he had a difficult choice to make

00:08:31.120 would he abandon his faith uh hope hopefully to keep his career or would he stand up and speak the truth

00:08:40.140 he chose the letter and uh faced severe consequences but he forced on and uh devised

00:08:49.460 creative ways to counter the government's propaganda and i don't want to give too much away because i think

00:08:55.440 everybody should see the movie um but your student activist protagonist in the story sort of

00:09:01.700 joins forces with an american journalist and you know in in the movie

00:09:08.620 you sort of go through the ways that the ccp puts pressure on western journalists 1.00

00:09:16.780 to self-silence themselves to self-censor um through fear of intimidation

00:09:23.740 yes there have been uh many reports uh about ccp's tactics to uh interfere and and silence foreign

00:09:35.680 correspondents in china including denying uh their visas um sending people to monitor them

00:09:44.180 intimidating the interviewees uh essentially excuse me essentially it's very challenging

00:09:52.220 for foreign reporters to report truthfully in china and even even if they want to do so

00:09:58.840 most of them knew where the line is sometimes even among the human rights atrocities reporters know

00:10:09.440 which one are easier to cover which ones are the absolute no-nos so i interviewed many reporters

00:10:18.680 who stationed in china and i had to say many of them really wanted to do a great job but it's not easy

00:10:26.700 now getting back to uh falun gong practitioners why did the ccp come down so hard on the falun gong 0.99

00:10:36.640 why was it something that the chinese state felt they needed to outlaw what was the threat i guess is

00:10:42.540 my question to the chinese state that's a great question falun gong was introduced in 1992 to the

00:10:49.400 public it's a buddhist based meditation practice uh that has the tenets of truthfulness compassion and

00:10:58.540 tolerance it was welcomed by the government in china and actually even supported for a long time

00:11:06.460 i think the chinese leadership once uh commented that uh there is enormous health benefits from the

00:11:14.620 practice that the country saves billions of yuan uh every year but uh a few things happened one

00:11:23.720 they realized by 1999 there were over 70 million to 100 million people practicing falun gong in china

00:11:31.620 which outnumbered the membership of the chinese communist party although falun gong has no political

00:11:38.520 agenda whatsoever but uh being a communist dictator jiang zemin was just so paranoid that he wanted to take

00:11:48.640 action and another important factor is that falun gong believes in truthfulness compassion and tolerance

00:11:56.200 whereas the communist regime is an atheist regime that functions based on propaganda and violence

00:12:04.040 if a large uh percentage of the population actually believe in truth actually believe in speaking the truth

00:12:12.920 it is no doubt a threat to the communist regime you know and i think it's for that same reason that

00:12:19.820 there's such a tough crackdown on christianity uh within china and as you point out the crackdown that

00:12:28.320 we're seeing on christians that we are seeing on uigurs all of this was perfected on falun gong 1.00

00:12:34.480 exactly um almost all religious practices and spiritual groups uh have been targeted in china since 1949

00:12:45.620 because the communist leaders don't want anyone or anything above them whether it's the lord the buddha or

00:12:52.520 ala or whoever they want to be the one that has the moral authority to say anything and take the

00:13:01.060 practice of organ harvesting for example uh it it was widespread in the falun gong and then uh the

00:13:10.000 uigurs also became uh a terrible terrible target for for the ccp and that's why when people raise 1.00

00:13:18.960 awareness about persecution against particular group they're really trying to help everybody

00:13:24.940 because no one is immune to the crackdown now i know that you faced some pretty severe challenges

00:13:34.220 trying to get this movie made you couldn't you had to make it in taiwan but the threat of intimidation

00:13:41.740 from the chinese state reached right into taiwan to disrupt production

00:13:46.640 almost every chinese speaking actors understandably want to develop their career in china

00:13:54.080 one day so we had tremendous difficulty uh casting in casting many actors uh didn't even come to an

00:14:04.840 audition and for for those courageous ones who initially accepted our offer some of them back off

00:14:11.420 we had uh crew members uh really wanting to remain anonymous so if you look at the end credit you see the

00:14:21.600 number of people who remain anonymous um locations quite often uh when our team is on set doing uh set

00:14:31.320 dressing the owner would come out and say oh you can't shoot your film here but we say well but

00:14:36.740 the film is scheduled the next day i say i don't care just you can't shoot here so after um long days of

00:14:46.060 production we had to scramble and look for another location so within two months of production the core

00:14:54.900 team only had one day off now and even for yourself are you facing any sort of intimidation

00:15:02.060 as a chinese canadian filmmaker making movies that are critical of the chinese state is that sort of

00:15:09.420 intimidation reaching into canada as well i had my uh fair share of encounter with the uh chinese 0.98

00:15:18.180 authorities in particular the ministry of state security let's say the chinese kgb uh they they threatened 1.00

00:15:26.180 me um but uh here's the thing i think two things happened one is they realized that leaving me alone as an

00:15:37.380 independent producer there's only so much damage i can do anything they try to do to interfere will only

00:15:45.180 attract more attention to the films which they don't want to see and secondly i i am deeply inspired by the

00:15:55.880 people i portray in my films if they can do what they did in china there is no reason i cannot tell their

00:16:05.240 story in canada now i wanted to ask you a question about hollywood because hollywood seems to be

00:16:14.520 very uh compliant i guess with china's demands we saw you know in the end credits of

00:16:25.620 mulan um you know sort of thanking the chinese government for allowing them to shoot in the 1.00

00:16:32.100 uighur province and you know we've seen hollywood stars like john cena basically groveling for access

00:16:40.320 to the chinese market is that why there really are no movies out there the major hollywood productions

00:16:49.260 that are critical of china like is it to get into the chinese market i guess is my question

00:16:55.340 yes um in 2021 the chinese box office has officially surpassed the u.s to become the number one in the

00:17:07.360 world and uh i believe it started in 1997 when there were several hollywood films that were uh let's say

00:17:16.640 not friendly to the chinese regime um and then people learned the lesson in order to uh be considered

00:17:25.160 uh to be imported into the chinese market because they had a strict quota system uh of of foreign films

00:17:33.020 that were allowed to be shown in china and people are really trying hard in the beginning it was to

00:17:39.100 make sure we don't criticize china and then uh people had to compete to portray the chinese regime in a

00:17:46.140 more positive light for example in certain films it has to be the chinese spaceship the chinese

00:17:52.680 agencies that saved save humanity right and then it went even one step further uh they had to allow

00:18:01.820 more chinese investment in those films uh so that uh of course in that case they couldn't even uh they

00:18:10.220 sometimes have to have uh alternate stories uh even more additional scenes for the version that to be shown

00:18:19.500 in china uh that's why it's it's extremely rare uh for hollywood to come you know to produce something uh that

00:18:29.820 shed light on human rights atrocities in china so what is the solution you know when hollywood is

00:18:36.700 either self-censoring or groveling and allowing chinese propaganda to be inserted into their films

00:18:43.580 and with china intimidating western journalists who are trying to tell their story also arresting and

00:18:50.140 cracking down on human rights activists what is the solution to getting the word out telling the world

00:18:56.860 about what is happening in china we just sat through the genocide olympics where the world did their

00:19:03.820 best to ignore what was happening around the olympics at the very same time so how what i guess how do we

00:19:10.380 get through all of that to tell the story you are but on a broader scale well for me i think it's

00:19:20.540 very important to keep telling stories like this uh we've got overwhelming uh response from the us and

00:19:28.860 canada now people are telling us how moved they were by by wong and his story in unsilenced and they

00:19:37.340 felt compelled to take action to share with their family and friends ultimately awareness among the public

00:19:44.780 is the most important thing if enough people know what's really going on in china i think they will

00:19:51.100 demand action from our politicians and the second uh point is that for a long time the west uh

00:20:02.540 naively believed that you know appeasement dialogue engagement somehow by uh trading with china 0.50

00:20:12.300 it's going to change the mind of the uh dictators there uh now after decades of such policy i think we

00:20:20.460 realize it doesn't work it's it's critical that the west realizes uh that the communist party in china

00:20:28.860 is the most uh dangerous threat that the west faces and divides policies accordingly otherwise

00:20:40.540 uh unfortunately what happens to ukraine will happen in in europe and will happen in taiwan and will

00:20:49.500 happen all over the world you know it's true i think western leaders for a long time thought that they

00:20:55.100 could teach china about capitalism by trading with them and instead china taught us all about the dangers 0.99

00:21:02.060 of communism and how quickly it can proliferate and how those tentacles of the chinese state reach into

00:21:08.300 every aspect of every aspect of our culture particularly in pop culture where we don't even realize that

00:21:13.340 we're watching chinese propaganda absolutely the ccp had a long-term plan for the west the the very 0.98

00:21:22.220 existence of our way of life is an existential threat to the ccp so they had plans whether it's economically 1.00

00:21:32.460 uh militarily uh militarily you know technology uh espionage everything they had a comprehensive plan

00:21:39.980 to infiltrate the west and to bring down uh our way of life here and that's why people really need to wake up

00:21:49.100 and i as a filmmaker i believe film is one of the most important tools if you you know drag someone on the street and say let me tell you about

00:21:58.460 human rights in china for two hours most will say no thank you but if you tell them a compelling story

00:22:05.100 through a film not only they remember it they resonate with it and they feel it so they can go ahead and

00:22:14.060 share with their family and friends um so i think that's uh hopefully uh an important way to shed light on

00:22:23.500 these kind of issues now uh i don't want to take up too much of your time but i know that your film is in theaters in canada right now

00:22:32.620 i was able to catch it in edmonton um what are some of the ways that people can find your film um what cities are

00:22:41.260 what cities um is the film in and um i know that it is available online very very soon but not quite yet so how can people

00:22:49.500 find the work but also support the work that you're doing because you are an independent filmmaker

00:22:55.500 and i doubt that you will ever have the backing of a big hollywood studio and that is not to say

00:23:01.020 that you don't deserve it it's just that they're too scared to give it they are certainly too scared

00:23:06.380 and i was hoping to get the film to some of the let's say big streaming platforms and so far from what i can

00:23:13.740 tell they were also scared to take it on so we're still exploring digital options but we don't have

00:23:20.780 anything lined up yet unfortunately it's in theaters now in canada in toronto vancouver montreal calgary

00:23:29.340 edmonton halifax and so on so if you go to unsilencedmovie.com you'll see a full list of theaters there

00:23:38.060 and if you could consider supporting us it would be uh very helpful because it's incredibly difficult

00:23:44.940 for indie film like ours to have a theatrical run and if if we um if we demonstrate that people

00:23:51.420 actually want to see content like this then there may be more opportunities in the future

00:23:56.940 leon i want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me but also for your bravery i know that

00:24:01.420 um like you say you've faced some um intimidation here in canada for the work that you're doing to

00:24:08.700 shine light on the stories of human rights atrocities in china and you know a special thanks to everybody

00:24:14.700 who was involved in the film because they you know face those same sort of intimidation challenges as

00:24:21.420 well um thank you so much for agreeing to this interview and best of luck on the film thank you for

00:24:27.420 having me thank you

00:24:39.100 to see leon's movie and to get show times in your area please go to unsilencedmovie.com it's a tough

00:24:45.980 two hours to watch but i think we all should i think we must know what china is capable of well

00:24:53.180 everybody that's the show for tonight thank you so much for tuning in i'll see everybody back here

00:24:57.340 in the same time in the same place next week and remember don't let the government tell you that

00:25:02.300 you've had too much to think

Rebel News Podcast - March 03, 2022

SHEILA GUNN REID ｜ Unsilenced： Chinese-Canadian filmmaker on his new film about the persecution of Falun Gong

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript