“We Decided to Treat the Policy and the Propaganda as if They Were Also Human Characters”: Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang on One Child Nation

One Child Nation, winner of this year’s Sundance U.S. Grand Jury Prize (and premiering theatrically August 9th via Amazon Studios), is a striking cinematic examination of China’s three-and-a-half decade long, one-child policy by filmmakers Nanfu Wang (Hooligan Sparrow, I Am Another You) and Jialing Zhang (Complicit). It’s also a stunning uncovering of the multi-layered machinations required for a government to negate reproductive autonomy.

And ironically, as the NYC-based Wang herself points out towards the end of the film, advocates of China’s (now defunct) policy and the US’s (very much alive) anti-abortion stance both subscribe to a core belief in state control over female bodies. Indeed, the US as well has a long record of forced sterilizations — most notably of Native American and black women — based on that same dubious “quality of life” justification that China long employed.

That said, the Chinese Communist Party took its mandate to a whole other bizarre level — openly celebrating (and, of course, propagandizing) its human rights abusing law. Which is why Filmmaker was excited to learn more from the China-born co-directors about this disturbingly dark chapter in their native country’s not-so-distant history.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.