Record Net (California): Film brings officials to Manteca - Chinese consul seeks movie's removal from festival

By Rhashad Pittman

Record Staff Writer

Published Thursday, November 4, 2004

MANTECA -- An independent film that was made to shock viewers and raise awareness about persecution in China has brought Chinese government officials to Manteca.

Shixun Yan, the Chinese consul general in San Francisco, and Vice Consul Zhang Wei Qing asked the Manteca Convention and Visitors Bureau on Tuesday not to show the movie "Sandstorm" at a film festival scheduled for Saturday, said Linda Abeldt, the bureau's executive director.

"Sandstorm," an independent film made in Toronto, has been shown at film festivals throughout the world, including in Moscow, New York City and India, and has won numerous awards.

The film tells the story of a Chinese police officer who is trapped in a sandstorm with a dying wife for 12 days. The officer begins to recall a woman who was tortured to death in a Chinese police station for not renouncing her belief in a spiritual practice called Falun Gong.

"Sandstorm" will be one of a number of independent international and domestic films being shown at the third annual Delta Film Festival this Saturday at PGM Theaters, 1355 N. Main St., Abeldt said.

She said the consular officials said the movie presented the Chinese government in a "bad light." Abeldt said she told them the bureau would not censor the film.

"We explained to them that this was one of the big differences in living in the United States," she said.

The consular officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday afternoon.

Falun Gong is a worldwide practice followed by millions of people, including thousands in the United States. Practitioners take part in light exercises and meditation and live by a set of principles.

Michael Mahonen, the film's writer and director, said Chinese officials in consulates in Moscow and Houston had requested that the film not be shown at film festivals in those cities. He said the movie is based on true accounts and involved Falun Gong practitioners, some of whom were detained and tortured in China.

"It was virtually intended to shock them and wake them up to let them know what they were doing," said Mahonen, who is working on another movie script about persecution in China.

"Right now, as we speak, there are people being tortured."

Tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been detained arbitrarily in China since the spiritual movement was banned in July 1999, according to the human rights group Amnesty International.

The House of Representatives passed a resolution last year condemning the Chinese government for harassing, imprisoning and beating members of advocacy groups, including Falun Gong practitioners, for "demonstrating peacefully inside that country."

Pamela Liu, 38, practices the Falun Gong exercises and meditation at McKinley Park in Sacramento every weekend. She said it relieves stress and improves her physical health.

Liu, who was born in China, said her mother-in-law was detained for practicing Falun Gong's exercises and its three principles: truthfulness, compassion and forbearance.

She said she plans to go to Manteca this weekend to watch "Sandstorm."

"I just hope more people can see it," Liu said. "We want to let more people know the truth about the persecutions and to let people know that practitioners are innocent people."

Source: http://www.recordnet.com/daily/news/articles/110404-gn-9.php