ONE CHILD NATION
SYNOPSIS
China’s One Child Policy, the extreme population control measure that made it illegal for couples to have more than one child, may have ended in 2015, but the process of dealing with the trauma of its brutal enforcement is only just beginning. From award-winning documentarian Nanfu Wang (HOOLIGAN SPARROW, I AM ANOTHER YOU) and Jialing Zhang, the sweeping ONE CHILD NATION explores the ripple effect of this devastating social experiment, uncovering one shocking human rights violation after another – from abandoned newborns, to forced sterilizations and abortions, and government abductions. Wang digs fearlessly into her own personal life, weaving her experience as a new mother and the firsthand accounts of her family members into archival propaganda material and testimony from victims and perpetrators alike, yielding a revelatory and essential record of this chilling, unprecedented moment in human civilization.
ONE CHILD NATION is a stunning, nuanced indictment of the mindset that prioritizes national agenda over human life, and serves as a first-of-its-kind oral history of this collective tragedy – bearing witness to the truth as China has already begun to erase the horrors of its “population war” from public record and memory.
CREDITS
Directors: Nanfu Wang & Jialing Zhang
Producers: Nanfu Wang, Jialing Zhang, Julie Goldman, Christoph Jörg, Christopher Clements, Carolyn Hepburn
Executive Producers: Ken Pelletier, Sally Jo Fifer,
Lois Vossen
Editor: Nanfu Wang
Additional Editors: Jialing Zhang, Michael Shade
Cinematography: Nanfu Wang, Yuanchen Liu
WHERE TO WATCH
FESTIVAL PREMIERE
& AWARDS
Sundance Film Festival: 2019 Premiere
Sundance Film Festival: 2019 Grand Jury Prize