One Child Nation
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“Each Film Speaks with its Own Voice”: An Interview with Composer Nathan Halpern
It’s been quite a year for composer Nathan Halpern. He had four films at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival—the feature-length documentaries After Parkland and One Child Nation and the narrative features Goldie and Swallow—and while he hasn’t slacked in his new output, all four of these projects have gone on to impressive post-festival activity. One Child Nation (directed by Nanfu Wang, a previous collaborator of Halpern’s) premiered at Sundance in 2019, and was acquired by Amazon Studios for a theatrical run in August; it’s now streaming on Amazon Prime. And three of the films are hitting theaters right now: After Parkland (directed by Emily Taguchi and Jake […]
by Randy Astle on Feb 27, 2020 -
Hits & Misses 2019: Surveying the Success of the Sundance Film Festival’s Theatrical Releases
The times, they keep a-changin’. In its immediate aftermath, the story out of Sundance 2019 was its bounteous acquisition market and record-setting sales numbers—from New Line’s $15 million purchase of Blinded by the Light to Amazon Studios’ $27 million splurge on Late Night and Brittany Runs a Marathon. By the summer, a different narrative began to emerge. While these top acquisition titles earned millions of dollars at the box office, they all still under-performed in theatrical release. Then, Amazon Studios’ veteran head of theatrical distribution Bob Berney left the company, a departure that potentially signaled shifting priorities at what had […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Dec 10, 2019 -
“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 […]
by Lauren Wissot on Aug 8, 2019 -
How Do Producers Get Started? Full Frame’s 9th Annual A&E IndieFilms Speakeasy, “The Pathway to Producing”
Filing into the lobby of the comfortably chic Durham Hotel at noon on a Saturday for “The Pathway to Producing,” an A&E IndieFilms Speakeasy panel moderated by Ian Kibbe (Raising Bertie) of the Documentary Producers Association, it struck me that the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is one of those rare fests, nonfiction or not, with genuine audience diversity. While one would expect people of color to show up for the always packed #DocsSoWhite discussions (of which there were two this year), non-white folks also fill the house for the conversations that have nothing to do with race or gender […]
by Lauren Wissot on Apr 16, 2019 -
“A Railway Police Officer Came to Question Her”: Directors Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang | One Child Nation
Whenever directors watch their own films, they always do so with the knowledge that there are moments that occurred during their production — whether that’s in the financing and development or shooting or post — that required incredible ingenuity, skill, planning or just plain luck, but whose difficulty is invisible to most spectators. These are the moments directors are often the most proud of, and that pride comes with the knowledge that no one on the outside could ever properly appreciate what went into them. So, we ask: “What hidden part of your film are you most privately proud of […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 26, 2019
