On November 8th to 15th, in New York, it was supposed to be the week of the “IndieChina Film Festival” in Brooklyn. A small cultural space in the Greenwich District had already hung up posters for the “IndieChina Film Festival”. It was the first edition of the festival, curated by independent curator and director Zhu Rikun, preparing to showcase over 40 independent films about China and inviting 22 directors for discussions.
However, just two days before the official opening, on November 6th, Zhu Rikun urgently announced the cancellation of the film festival. All public screenings, forums, and workshops were canceled; tickets that had been sold were fully refunded; the venue was changed to a private gathering and no longer open to the public.
This originally unknown event with a scale of only tens of people suddenly got embroiled in an international storm of pressure. An invisible network, from late night in Beijing to early morning in New York, closed in swiftly – ultimately silencing independent creators in China, putting a halt to Chinese cultural activities in the United States, all without a formal warning or explanation.
The turning point began with a phone call on October 30th.
At five in the morning that day, Zhu Rikun’s father suddenly called, speaking unusually and asking him if he had done something unfavorable outside, advising him “not to do anything harmful to the country outside”.
Before he could clarify the reason, another message came from Beijing: a temporary tenant staying in his studio informed him that she had been taken by the authorities for a talk, instructed not to handle miscellaneous tasks for him anymore, and even heard a sentence saying, “When he returns to the country, he must be dealt with by law.”
She was specifically instructed to inform Zhu Rikun of this matter and reply to the department.
In the political context of China, the implications of these words were crystal clear.
Within the next two days, almost all directors who were still in China canceled their participation. The reasons were almost identical – “personal reasons”. They requested the withdrawal of their films, promotional materials, names, and even demanded the deletion of any trace of their films on social media platforms.
Some dared not say a word more; others clearly told him that they or their families were asked to withdraw.
The pressure was not limited to within China. Directors in Europe, the United States, Africa, and other places also informed him that due to their families being questioned or “talked to,” they had to withdraw their films. Even film critics hosting post-screening discussions and forum guests had their family members in China interfered with.
Zhu Rikun initially thought it was an isolated incident. However, within a few days, the situation took a nosedive, with names on the list disappearing one after another as if dominoes were collapsing uncontrollably. When the withdrawal rate approached ninety percent, even eagerly anticipated guests began to feel uneasy.
The threats did not only come from thousands of miles away.
One of the New York screening venues received an anonymous email from a group of “Chinese students living in New York,” accusing the film festival’s projected films of “potentially not accurately reflecting the real situation of contemporary Chinese society” and demanded the cancellation of all activities.
In an interview with English New Tang Dynasty, Zhu Rikun said he had never received any formal notice: “I did not get any direct information, no one directly told me which film was sensitive, nor did anyone say you have a problem because of a certain movie.” The pressure was not aimed at him but at directors, family members, guests, volunteers, and collaborators – anyone associated with the festival became a target of pressure. When he realized that the risks to participants were beyond his control, the film festival became unsustainable.
The income aspect collapsed entirely: originally hoping to recover some costs through ticket sales and merchandise, now not only was there no income, but there was also a need to refund all tickets in full and pay additional handling fees. Many audiences who had already booked tickets and flown in from Canada, Europe, and even China suffered losses. Zhu Rikun stated that even the volunteers who assisted him in the US were forced to withdraw due to threats to their families, leaving all subsequent work on his shoulders alone, with his inbox filled with various emails, just dealing with the withdrawal process of nearly 40 film directors was already a huge workload.
“The pressure is off the charts,” he said.
How could a small, low-budget event with only tens of people involved attract such massive pressure?
Zhu Rikun said that all the films were independent creations, and the “Indie China Film Festival” relied entirely on his personal funding: totaling around $50,000 for venue, accommodation, publicity, transportation, and other expenses, while crowdfunding only raised about $1,100. He estimated an audience of around 60 to 70 per screening – this was an independent initiative driven by ideals.
For such a small-scale event to face cross-border pressure, Zhu Rikun found it absurd. He said that initially, he only intended to showcase works of a few familiar directors, but after an open call for submissions, he unexpectedly received nearly 200 submissions from around the world, showcasing diverse themes and demonstrating the creative power of Chinese-language creators, which made him feel “inspired”.
In the end, 31 works were selected, along with special programs totaling about 45 films, forming a rare snapshot of independent Chinese-language cinema.
The festival lineup included “The Rekindled Fire”, depicting the plight of children on the China-Vietnam border, and the documentary “If We Burn” by Hong Kong directors Liang Sizhong and Li Chenglin, which documented the 2019 Hong Kong anti-extradition movement – a work often simplistically labeled as a “protest film”. However, Zhu Rikun believed that these films should not be viewed with a narrow perspective.
He emphasized his opposition to labeling films with a single, absolute definition and was not willing to have works conceptualized or labeled. “For us, films are inherently diverse. Different viewers will have different understandings and feelings, and each person can derive different messages from the works.”
For him, a good film should not only serve a certain standpoint but also allow viewers to see “complex realities”. The festival aimed to create a space for constructive dialogue, allowing issues such as Hong Kong, poverty, immigration, and even the subtle experiences of daily life to be freely portrayed.
Yet it is precisely because these films depict real life and social contradictions, touching on sensitive topics, that they cannot be screened in China. In China, films must be reviewed and obtain a dragon mark according to the “Film Industry Promotion Law,” and those engaged in film work in China are required to “serve socialism”; works without the dragon mark cannot be screened or participate in film festivals.
The 49-year-old Zhu Rikun, born in Guangdong and a graduate of Peking University, has served as a judge at various international film festivals. This was not his first encounter with censorship.
Before moving from China to New York in 2014, he curated independent film festivals for nearly 20 years in China and was a co-founder of the “Beijing Independent Film Festival”. Over the past decade, the festival in China has repeatedly been dispersed, canceled, venues sealed off, and hard drives seized.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) points out that since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, China’s freedom spaces have rapidly shrunk, with three major independent film festivals – the Beijing Independent Film Festival, the China Independent Film Festival (formerly Yunnan New Cloud Film Festival), and the Yunnan Documentary Image Exhibition – all being banned.
During Beijing’s last independent film festival closure, the CCP authorities cut off power, confiscated files, and demanded that the organizers sign a commitment not to organize film festivals again. Many organizers attempted to change the format to multiple venues for screenings but were unsuccessful.
Zhu Rikun admitted, “In the end, all of my festivals were banned, not a single one could continue.”
Even so, he still believes that there will always be a place to hold a truly free “IndieChina Film Festival”. He thought that place would be New York.
However, he never imagined that censorship would cross the Pacific and reach the streets of Brooklyn.
Yalkun Uluyol, a researcher on China issues at Human Rights Watch, pointed out that the Chinese government is “reaching out across the world,” attempting to control how the world perceives and understands China.
Such cross-border intimidation is not a new phenomenon – in recent years, the overseas Chinese cultural and academic community has faced various forms of cross-border pressure, including pressure on family members, surveillance of dissenters, mobilization of student communities, anonymous threats, as well as reporting and harassment.
What Zhu Rikun encountered this time was a concentrated display of these tactics.
Uluyol believes that foreign governments should address these signs of cross-border interference with free speech and suggest countermeasures. An editorial in the New York Post also strongly criticized the incident, stating that external influences can effectively impact cultural activities and speech spaces in New York, warranting vigilance from all levels of government.
Faced with mounting pressure, Zhu Rikun gave up months of preparation and was forced to make a “painful” decision: to cancel the film festival.
“I am in pain, but if I don’t stop, any participant – directors, forum participants, peripheral individuals, volunteers, and even the audience – could potentially be threatened or harassed. In this situation, I found myself in a difficult ethical dilemma. We need to be responsible for the safety of others,” he said.
After announcing the cancellation statement on Facebook, he wrote that he made the decision to cancel the festival not out of fear or surrender but in the hope that certain “unknown forces” would no longer harass those associated with the festival.
He emphasized that the cancellation did not mean the end.
After the cancellation, the venue rental could not be refunded, and he continued to visit the empty screening room every day, watching films alone and discussing with friends. He said, “This is also a kind of artistic act, a form of resistance.”
Zhu Rikun repeatedly emphasized that the independent film festival was not intended as a provocation but as a platform to allow diverse narratives to coexist. The essence of “independence” is that creators do not have to cater to any authority.
In a highly censored commercial film environment, narratives often tend to be one-dimensional, safe, and avoid sensitive topics; characters are flat, and problems are concealed.
He said, “Independence does not necessarily mean good; there are issues with varying quality, technical immaturity, and overly rigid expressions. But it allows for the possibility of telling real, diverse, and wounded stories.”
For example, the documentary “Dust” he made in 2013–2014 documented the lives of workers suffering from pneumoconiosis – once afflicted, pneumoconiosis is irreversible, but could have been prevented with proper protection, yet factories blamed the workers; when workers petitioned, they were monitored and obstructed. It is precisely these real and complex stories that cannot exist within the censorship system.
Although the film festival was forced to cancel, Zhu Rikun believed that this edition still “happened”.
It became a historical record – a case of cross-border censorship reaching New York, a tiny but resilient independent cultural event. He also announced that the second edition would be held next year.
“I am still an independent filmmaker from China. I won’t stop,” he said.