For years, China had taken extreme measures to control its population growth. One of those measures was the One Child Policy, which limited the families in the country to only having one child. Thankfully, that terrible law was ended in 2015, but the effects of the policy live on, as seen in the upcoming documentary, “One Child Nation.”
And in honor of “One Child Nation” arriving in theaters on August 9, we are happy to give you an exclusive look at a clip from the film, which illustrates exactly what the One Child Policy was such a horrible, and heart wrenching, law for China’s people. In the clip, you hear from filmmaker Nanfu Wang, as she interviews her mother and her uncle, who describe an incident where the man and his sister had to attempt to save the life of his newborn daughter by leaving her in the middle of a market in the cover of darkness. The story gives just a taste of the harrowing stories you’ll hear in “One Child Nation.”
“One Child Nation” had its debut at this year’s Sundance, where it eventually would win the US Grand Jury Prize: Documentary.
READ MORE: Grand Jury Prize Winner ‘One Child Nation’ Uncovers A Traumatic History [Sundance Review]
We were able to see “One Child Nation” when it premiered earlier this year. In our review, we said, “Wang’s film is intimate, thought-provoking and well-crafted. It condemns the horrors of the policy without condemning those who were brainwashed into being its vessels, and it gives voice to so many families whose agency was stolen from them.”
“One Child Nation” arrives in theaters on August 9. You can watch the exclusive clip below.
Here’s the synopsis:
China’s One Child Policy, the extreme population control measure that made it illegal for couples to have more than one child, may have ended in 2015, but the process of dealing with the trauma of its brutal enforcement is only just beginning. From award-winning documentarian Nanfu Wang (Hooligan Sparrow, I Am Another You) and Jialing Zhang, the sweeping One Child Nation explores the ripple effect of this devastating social experiment, uncovering one shocking human rights violation after another – from abandoned newborns, to forced sterilizations and abortions, and government abductions. Wang digs fearlessly into her own personal life, weaving her experience as a new mother and the firsthand accounts of her family members into archival propaganda material and testimony from victims and perpetrators alike, yielding a revelatory and essential record of this chilling, unprecedented moment in human civilization. One Child Nation is a stunning, nuanced indictment of the mindset that prioritizes national agenda over human life, and serves as a first-of-its-kind oral history of this collective tragedy – bearing witness to the truth as China has already begun to erase the horrors of its “population war” from public record and memory.