Storyline

After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Mao Tsetung established a system of labor camps for systematic repression, known as Laogai, an abbreviation for "Reform Through Labor". In such camps, forced labor and physical and mental torture were used to bring about a so-called mental reform, re-education in the spirit of the Chinese Communist Party. Millions of Chinese were affected. Many were executed. In hundreds of camps, the Party took advantage of the prisoners' free labor to build the economy. Self-criticism and denunciation were often the only way to escape martyrdom. Successive waves of purges culminated in the Cultural Revolution, which saw massive human rights abuses, political assassinations, massacres, and exiles in remote parts of the country. Using unreleased archive footage, the documentary tells the story of the invention, development and improvement of China's totalitarian system of surveillance and repression up to the present day, never told before.

Details

Cast

Ai Weiwei

Self - Interviewee

Mao Zedong

Self (archive footage)

Deng Xiaoping

Self (archive footage)

Xi Jinping

Self (archive footage)

Jiang Zemin

Self (archive footage)

Zhou Enlai

Self (archive footage)

Philippe Bozo

Self - Additional Voice (voice)

Jean-Pol Brissart

Self - Additional Voice (voice)

Marc Brunet

Self - Additional Voice (voice)

Yumi Fujimori

Self - Additional Voice (voice)

Michel Laroussi

Self - Additional Voice (voice)

Martial Le Minoux

Self - Additional Voice (voice)

Information