{"id":138113,"date":"2012-06-14T00:13:22","date_gmt":"2012-06-14T07:13:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=138113"},"modified":"2012-06-14T00:16:21","modified_gmt":"2012-06-14T07:16:21","slug":"china-threatens-uk-boycotts-over-ai-weiwei-dalai-lama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2012\/06\/china-threatens-uk-boycotts-over-ai-weiwei-dalai-lama\/","title":{"rendered":"China Threatens UK Boycotts over Ai Weiwei, Dalai Lama"},"content":{"rendered":"
Amid fears that Hollywood’s growing relationship with China could encourage self-censorship<\/a>, a Chinese industry delegation has withdrawn from a UK documentary festival<\/strong><\/a> after organisers refused to cancel screenings of two films. Alison Klayman’s Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry<\/em><\/a> is a portrait of the famous dissident artist and his art-slash-activism, while Steve Maing’s High Tech, Low Life<\/em><\/a>, previously featured on CDT<\/a>, shows the use of technology in citizen journalism and censorship circumvention in China. From Adam Benzine at Realscreen:<\/p>\n The delegation was due to include execs from CCTV, CETV, Phoenix TV and the Golden Eagle Documentary Channel, and was billed in pre-festival material as \u201cthe first-ever group of Chinese delegates\u2026 at Doc\/Fest, including controllers from all the major documentary channels.\u201d<\/p>\n [\u2026] Talking to realscreen, Sheffield Doc\/Fest director Heather Croall added: \u201cOfficially we have been told that the reason they cancelled is related to a restriction on the number of travel trips they can make to Europe. Unofficially though, there were a number of difficult conversations regarding films we are screening in our program that are critical of the Chinese Government. We thought we had found a way to have the delegation and the films.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we are very disappointed that the Chinese delegation will now not be attending the festival, but we remain very hopeful that they will attend in future. Chinese filmmakers, distributors and commissioners will always be welcome at Doc\/Fest.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Ai laughed off the news<\/a> on Twitter, commenting that those behind the decision had made fools of themselves<\/a>. Sheffield Doc\/Fest<\/a> runs until Sunday, June 17th.<\/p>\n\n