Falun Gong, a offshoot of Buddhist Qi Gong, has been illegal since 1992 in mainland China. "By the late '90s there were more than 100 million practicing Falun Gong members," said director Masha Savitz,"It made [Communist officials] very nervous, and jealous ... the Communist party cannot have people not afraid of them. That’s how they control people."
Savitz follows David Matas, the co-author of Red Harvest, an investigation in forced organ donated using detained Falun Gong practitioners. The director says that she was motivated to confront the issue "head on" after reporting on a speech made by Matas on the subject.
The Communist Party's refusal to acknowledge the religious group, made it difficult to obtain reliable interviews and information about the extent of the problem in China, so the documentary makers relied on first-hand accounts and personal connections. The frank and graphic descriptions left her shaken, "I almost couldn't bare it,", she said, talking about the last few days of editing before the film was ready for screening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rwe_jxzomiw
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