TRAILERS

Official Trailer for 'Ask No Questions' Doc About Authoritarian Control

by Alex Billington
May 14, 2020
Source: YouTube

"They forced me to sit in front of a TV for eight hours a day." 1091 Media has released an official trailer for a compelling documentary titled Ask No Questions, an inside look at the way China's media participates in the government's authoritarian control. It just premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival earlier this year, and will be available to watch on VOD this June. A Slamdance programmer stated, "I have been mesmerized since I happened upon this. As close to Black Mirror as you'll find in non-fiction, it is a topical, necessary and important film." When Chinese state television blames his faith for a fiery public suicide, former state television insider Chen Ruichang is detained in a Clockwork Orange-style brainwashing facility and forced to accept the government's account. Which he believes was a government plot. This certainly is frightening, and I don't mean to feed into more conspiracies about China, but these kind of stories are crazy. Scary stuff.

Official trailer (+ poster) for Jason Loftus & Eric Pedicelli's doc Ask No Questions, direct from YouTube:

When the Chinese state television blames his faith for a fiery public suicide, Chen Ruichang is detained in a Clockwork Orange-style brainwashing facility and forced to accept the government’s account. But Chen, a former insider of the state TV himself, believes it was a government plot. A CNN reporter got footage of the event that day but was muzzled by Beijing. Now her eyewitness testimony helps untangle an intricate conspiracy, as Chinese authorities pressure the filmmaker’s family and business associates. The doc film shows the deadly power of media under authoritarian control. It also shows the remarkable power of an individual who refuses to compromise the truth. Ask No Questions is co-directed by doc filmmakers Jason Loftus (producer of "Confucius Was a Foodie") & Eric Pedicelli (editor on Tin City Voices, The Global Groove Network, Black Code) both making their directorial debut with this. It premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival this year. 1091 releases Ask No Questions direct-to-VOD starting on June 30th this summer.

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