B.C. director premieres controversial film on human rights abuses against Falun Gong in China

Vancouver filmmaker Leon Lee was deeply moved four years ago when he spoke to a Chinese university student who had fled his home country to avoid religious persecution.

The student's story eventually inspired Unsilenced, a semi-biographical feature film about the Chinese government's crackdown on Falun Gong practitioners, which is now playing in theatres across Canada. 

The film, produced in Canada and Taiwan, is based on the account of Wang Weiyu, a student at Beijing's Tsinghua University who was imprisoned in China for more than eight years for practising Falun Gong before he escaped to the United States in 2018.  

Lee, who spent most of his life in China before coming to Canada in 2006, said he was completely unaware of China's persecution of Falun Gong members until he read about it in a Chinese-language newspaper in Vancouver — a moment he says opened his eyes to the tight control of information the government has in his home country.

WATCH | Leon Lee's film, Unsilenced, is playing in theatres now

A growing movement banned in China

According to its members, Falun Gong is a spiritual practice that borrows from Buddhist and Taoist traditions — but the Chinese government has called it a cult which spreads "superstitious fallacies."

The movement was officially banned in China in 1999 after thousands of its members gathered in central Beijing near the governing Chinese Communist Party's headquarters, protesting recent raids of Falun Gong leaders' homes. 

Since then, human rights groups including Amnesty International, have raised concerns about the torture of Falun Gong members in China, a concern echoed by Canada's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which has called on the Chinese government to permit religious freedom in its country.

Though independent data is difficult to find, the New York-based Falun Dafa Information Centre says more than 3,300 Falun Gong members have died in prison or from abuse, and the United Nations Commission on Human Rights has raised concerns about reports of torture of Falun Gong practitioners — most recently in 2021.

Speaking out

Lee, who is not a Falun Gong practitioner, said when he came to Canada in 2006 to study commerce and psychology at the University of British Columbia he was shocked to read about organ harvesting in China — a claim China has repeatedly denied — in a Chinese-language newspaper. From there, he says, he sought more information and started working to shine a light on the issue himself.

Eight years later, he won the Peabody Award in 2014 for Human Harvest, a documentary about allegations of forced organ harvesting from hundreds of thousands of prisoners of conscience — mainly Falun Gong practitioners, but also Tibetans, Uyghurs and Christians.

Lee says due to the politically sensitive nature of Unsilenced, his crew wasn't able to film and recruit talent in China. Even in Canada and Taiwan, many crew members chose to remain anonymous or quit at the last minute because they hoped to get work in China and worried any association with the film and Falun Gong would hurt their chances, he said. 

"Cast members … would back off even after accepting the offer, [and] we had location owners coming out and looking at our [set] decoration and said, 'You know what, you can't film here,'" he said. 

Lead actor barred from China

In Unsilenced, Anastasia Lin plays Chinese journalist Min, an idealistic assistant to veteran American journalist Daniel Davis, who was kicked out by the Chinese government for his Tiananmen Square coverage in 1989 and is reluctant to do any further political reporting after his return to China in 1999. 

Lin, a Falun Gong practitioner, has acted in Lee's three previous films, portraying a victim of China's human rights abuses. In 2015, she was denied entry to China to compete in the Miss World beauty pageant because of her high-profile criticism of China's treatment of Falun Gong.

Lin says while she understands many filmmaking professionals are being cautious because they seek career opportunities in China, she warns that they may end up foregoing more freedoms than they realize.

"Eventually, the Chinese government's not going to give anyone an easy time — if you have the slightest urge to speak the truth or to remain free for part of your soul, the Chinese government is going to want to crush it," she said.

Lin says it's a miracle the film finally hit Canadian theatres because the production crew had to overcome so many challenges shooting the politically sensitive picture.

Lee says it's even more miraculous to see Chinese viewers braving political repercussions to write to him and show their appreciation.

"I was told some of my films were among the most pirated political films in China, and they were telling me how moved they were and how they were helping to spread the word," he said.