Chinese Dissident Artist’s New Film Exposes Refugee Crisis

FEATURING AI WEIWEI – The famed dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has taken on the most urgent humanitarian issues of our time: the global refugee crisis. In a new documentary called Human Flow, Ai Weiwei explores the human cost of war, violence, and climate change that has made refugees of 65 million people.

Traveling with his camera crew to 23 countries over the course of a year, Ai Weiwei captured in intimate moments, the desperation that has driven refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea, Palestine, and Myanmar to risk their lives escaping violence.

The film is sweeping and vast, with drone-camera shots showcasing in aerial shots the vast extent of the crisis. But it is also personal as we see a father cry over the loss of his entire family on a boat, two brothers tearfully promise to follow one another across continents, a grandmother complain about the labyrinth of changing rules for refugees, and much more.

At a time when Europe and the US are rewriting their rules for entry in direct response to the massive demand for people looking for safe haven, Ai Weiwei’s Human Flow puts faces to the numbers.

The film was released in Fall 2017 and short listed for an Academy Award for Best Documentary. The film has just been made available on a number of online video streaming services such as Amazon, YouTube and iTunes. Here is the interview Sonali did with Ai Wei Wei when his film was first released in theaters.

For more information about the movie visit www.humanflow.com.

Ai Weiwei, internationally renowned and award winning Chinese dissident artist, activist and filmmaker, and an outspoken critic of the Chinese government’s anti-democratic policies and poor human rights record. He has been jailed for his activism and placed under house arrest over the years.

**Originally broadcast on October 2, 2017.