The inaugural IndieChina Movie Competition (IndieChina电影节, IndieChina Diànyǐngjié), which was set to run from November 8-15 in New York Metropolis, has been pressured to shut as a result of what seems to be a coordinated transnational stress marketing campaign by the Chinese language authorities. Citing intimidation and threats made in opposition to the households of Chinese language organizers and volunteers, in addition to unrelenting stress on collaborating administrators to tug their movies from the pageant, IndieChina curator Zhu Rikun issued an announcement on November 5 saying that for the protection of all concerned the pageant wouldn’t go ahead.
Transnational repression on the IndieChina Movie Competition: Transnational repression on the IndieChina Movie Competition: open.substack.com/pub/donaldcl…
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— Donald Clarke (@donaldcclarke.bsky.social) November 7, 2025 at 8:13 PM
The organizer of the inaugural IndieChina Movie Competition in New York stated he was pressured to cancel after dealing with a “relentless” stress marketing campaign, and that he could also be unable to journey again to China.
“I did assume it may be higher right here….It seems I used to be fallacious.”
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— Sarah McLaughlin (@sarahemclaugh.bsky.social) November 6, 2025 at 9:28 PM
At The Guardian, Amy Hawkins reported on the stress marketing campaign that pressured pageant curator Zhu Rikun to cancel 80% of the deliberate screenings as a result of so many filmmakers had pulled out of the pageant:
Zhu stated the requests primarily got here from administrators based mostly in China, who cited “private causes” for altering their thoughts about screening their movies. Administrators based mostly exterior China stated their households again house had been contacted by the Chinese language authorities, a typical method of making use of stress to individuals past its borders.
Zhu, who is predicated in New York, stated a colleague at his studio in Beijing had been taken away for questioning by the authorities and informed to not work with him.
One of many pageant’s venues obtained an nameless letter claiming to be from a bunch of Chinese language college students residing in New York who wished the screening to be cancelled, Zhu stated.
On Thursday, Zhu stated he had been pressured to cancel the pageant. “Given the present circumstances, if I don’t droop this version of the movie pageant, anybody concerned within the pageant – whether or not administrators, discussion board members, related employees, volunteers, and even viewers members – may probably face threats or harassment,” he stated in an announcement.
“This case locations me in a tough moral place. As each an organiser and a person, I’ve no intention of placing anybody in peril, whether or not such hazard is actual or fabricated as a method of intimidation.” [Source]
Nikkei Asia’s Pak Yiu reported on the movie pageant’s closure, and the way the stress marketing campaign that shut it down resembles different efforts at transnational repression by the Chinese language authorities:
The harassment Zhu reported echoes experiences reported by Chinese language rights activists and main watchdogs. Hong Kong, Uyghur and Tibetan dissidents have raised issues over the Chinese language authorities’s efforts to repress or silence abroad activism, in what has been described as transnational repression. Different alleged incidents have included intimidation of relations in China.
The U.S. earlier this 12 months sanctioned a number of Hong Kong officers for his or her position in such repression, saying they had been concerned in a marketing campaign “to intimidate, silence, and harass” pro-democracy activists who had fled abroad. Final 12 months, HRW issued a report on alleged Chinese language authorities intimidation of Chinese language nationals residing in Japan.
[…] The IndieChina Movie Competition was to be the primary grassroots Chinese language movie pageant in New York, the place filmmakers are free from censorship. It was to showcase greater than 40 documentaries and brief movies on a spread of matters, together with LGBTQ identities and the Anti-Rightist Marketing campaign in China within the late Nineteen Fifties. Talks with administrators had been on the schedule.
[…] The ranks of Chinese language impartial filmmakers have been rising, regardless of the problem of discovering locations to indicate their documentaries and have movies. The New York pageant was supposed as a chance to display screen up to date movies and have them seen by the Chinese language diaspora.
“I did assume it may be higher right here,” Zhu stated. He recalled pondering that “it’s not like my occasion would appeal to an enormous quantity of consideration.”
“It seems I used to be fallacious.” [Source]
New York's IndieChina Movie Competition, scheduled for November 8-15, has been abruptly cancelled over security issues. The Chinese language authorities had focused members and even the organizer's family and friends with harassment and threats. Learn the official assertion: indiechina.org/%e5percent85percentb3percente4…
— Human Rights in China (@hrichina.bsky.social) November 6, 2025 at 1:18 PM
An announcement from Human Rights Watch condemned the harassment of filmmakers and efforts to intimidate the pageant’s curator and volunteers by threatening their households again in China. It additionally supplied a short historical past of the numerous impartial movie festivals which have been shut down in China:
“The Chinese language authorities reached across the globe to close down a movie pageant in New York Metropolis,” stated Yalkun Uluyol, China researcher at Human Rights Watch. “This newest act of transnational repression demonstrates the Chinese language authorities’s purpose to manage what the world sees and learns about China.”
Chiang Seeta, a Chinese language artist and activist, reported that almost all collaborating administrators in China confronted intimidation. Even administrators overseas, together with those that are usually not Chinese language nationals, reported that their family members and buddies in China had been receiving threatening calls from police, stated Chiang.
[…] Impartial movie festivals in China have confronted intensifying crackdowns over the previous decade, Human Rights Watch stated. The Chinese language authorities have shut down all three main impartial movie festivals in China: Yunfest, based in 2003; the China Impartial Movie Competition, based in 2003; and Beijing Impartial Movie Competition, based in 2006.
When the authorities shut down the final screening of the Beijing Impartial Movie Competition in 2014, they reduce off electrical energy from the venue, confiscated paperwork from the organizer’s workplace, and compelled the organizers to signal a paper promising to not maintain the pageant. Many pageant organizers have tried with out success to adapt, as an example by altering their format to screenings at a number of venues.
The 14th China Impartial Movie Competition was shuttered in 2018, the final time such a pageant occurred in China. [Source]
Chinese language impartial movie has lengthy been a goal for varied types of censorship and intimidation by Chinese language authorities. Home movie festivals have been shut down; on-line censorship is frequent; filmmakers have been topic to harassment, fines, and confiscations, in addition to arrests and detentions; and not less than one abroad movie pageant suffered a Chinese language government-backed cyberattack.
