Ai Weiwei and "The Fake Case"

The title of this article is ambiguous - it's about a film by the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, and about "The Fake Case" (the apparent process) that is behind this film.

The film "The Fake Case"

The film "The Fake Case" is a Canadian-Danish-British production in which the award-winning Danish documentary filmmaker Andreas Johnsen took over the direction. The book on the film also comes from Andreas Johnsen, who with his company Rosforth Films produced a number of sensitive documentary films and is one of the stars of the Danish documentary.

Here, too, Johnsen and his team managed to capture the core of the threat of the bogus process in scary concise, after 86 minutes of film the viewer feels the anxiety on his own body.

The regime -critical artist Ai Weiwei was arrested at the Peking Airport on April 3, 2011 and was deported to an unknown place. For 81 days, the Chinese state power kept him without the rule of law and under advanced justifications that was locked up there, the goal was to finally silence the critical artist.

This has caused a lot of sensation in the democratic world, and there is not only a film about Ai Weiwei in the period of detention. The American Alison Klayman, who lived in China for a long time, is devoted to the artist in and after the detention in the documentary "Never Sorry for Exposing China's Oppression" (I will never apologize to uncover the oppression in China. She accompanies his life for three years, the documentary shows excerpts from AI Weisweis live during this time, including his arrest 2011.

Overall, a kind of documentary autobiography was created that touches ai Weisweis overall life and work. The documentary, mostly only quoted with the title "Never Sorry" , came out in 2012 and had its German premiere at Documenta 13.

The Danish documentary filmmaker Andreas Johnsen only accompanied Ai Weiwei after his release - if he was in China, but stepped at every turn. Ai Weiwei was only released on “probation” after his detention in June 2011. The reason for detention was simply claimed in his "arrest" and has not yet been proven with evidence. The procedure against Ai Weiwei is thus as an illegal deprivation of freedom, because an arrest in a rule of law requires such a reason for detention.

After that, Ai Weiwei was also under strict house arrest for a year for a year. This meant that he was not allowed to step on the doorstep that he was not allowed to make any interviews or other explanations, he was obliged to maintain constant contact with the police.

As I said, the actual "fake case" is, as I said, without any proof of tax evasion, for every person in a rule of law, an obvious attempt by the state to intimidate the artist known for critical statements and silence.

This would have succeeded if the Chinese people had not delivered support in a really sensational manner: donate thousands of citizens, with their help, Ai Weiwei can raise the absurd million sum that the state has "imposed on him as punishment".

Andreas Johnsen was in China seven times to accompany Ai Weiwei, overall he worked on this film for years. Johnsen simply lets Ai Weiwei tell, over the 81 days of insulating, about the fact that there were always two guards in his tiny cell.

Even during the night's sleep, which you can well imagine that it was not so post -fluid, reports without Ai Weiwei about ups and downs or those suffering from swallowing.

Johnsen also shows that Ai Weiwei goes to his limits, he shows him tired and overwhelmed - but above all he shows how ai Weiwei still succeeds in beating the rightless and shameless attackers with their own weapons:

In his studio he installs four cameras that monitor him from all sides, day and night, 24 hours, and also streams the pictures into the world 24 hours of non -stop, which not only impressively demonstrates the perfect harmlessness of his actions and life, but just as impressively gives every imaginative person to make an idea of ​​what it really means if his own data and the pictures of his own life have not been authorized and not legal Regular data collection and data use via the Internet.

If it is reported that the authorities are "anything but pleased" about the self -rising defense of the artist, less imaginative people will certainly run down the first shower ...

In “The Fake Case”, Andreas Johnsen has very intimate the atmosphere of lawlessness and its effects on China's most famous artists , which is precisely this to emphasize that the film is all the more clear.

"Bodil" critic prize in Denmark in 2013 for the best documentary of the year.

What does that matter to us?

In conversations at the level of pubs-which is still there, even if there are fewer and fewer pubs-the opinion is very quickly expressed that it is probably completely exaggerated to work for an artist who is sitting in China, you have enough to do here in Germany, and our money should better benefit the needy here (what money you think remains unclear, perhaps a salary that Ai Weiwei for his work at the Berlin Academy of Künste If he could exercise this - what would mean that would mean, the author refuses to remain out).

These are the people who say "I don't care if someone collects my data, I have nothing to hide!", Without realizing that they are being treated internationally and that people already end up on surveillance and exclusion lists when a family is looking for a saucepan and some camping accessories on the Internet at the same time because you can build bad things out of these two things (which of course nobody knows in this family).

Incidentally, these are mostly the people who are typically not committed to their fellow citizens in their own country and give a victim of an excessive injustice in doubt that it should not be so upset against "the ones there" it couldn't do anything anyway.

If you ask an independent craftsman who has been reported by failed by the failed (and perhaps still legally established by process fraud as not owed to such cases). Or a physically employed person who has to live on state support after an accident at work because the professional association refuses its obligation to pay; Or the victim of a contract with a large corporation, the non -compliance of which is in fact not purely judicial because the large corporation complains through the instances and the victim in our state does not get enough help in the judicial enforcement of his rights - they will even say that the Chinese people have a lot ahead with the standing for Ai Weiwei.

For us, the craftsmen, the accident victim and the victim may briefly be interested in the interest of the media (of which they have little), then they are forgotten and finally treated as failed livelihoods that will have already done something wrong - have accepted the wrong client (although a client who wants to be desired before), did not provide false information from the professional cooperative (although the consultant had not said to have given a flu when the contract was concluded be concluded), have concluded the wrong contract (although each contract is wrong if the contractual partner does not want to adhere to this contract from his power and the judiciary does not stop it).

"Ai Weiwei The Fake Case" shows us an artist who is committed to personal freedom and freedom of expression without reservations and even regardless of personal well -being against the violation of human rights.

We all, including the Germans, can learn from Ai Weiwei that it will not be possible without taking on our own responsibility. Especially in a global world - the individual is even more in demand in a global world if we do not want to leave the field to "global players" who usually have nothing good for other people in their "global game".

What we can learn from the case and the reaction of the Chinese people is an attitude - the attitude that it is an irreplaceable part of a civil society (in contrast to a society in which it is simply the stronger) and a democracy to listen to the victims and the weaker, to take their arguments as important as that of their powerful opponents and they are limited to harm.

We can learn to work for our neighbors, who is in no fault of her existence instead of looking down and happy that we are not affected, and we can even learn not to buy from a company that his employees like cattle and/or simply do not pay taxes in the world - in short and in German, we can learn that it is important to everyone and the world when it comes to the world should remain worth living.

Aufwahr as art brings additional profits

All concerns that are currently in the section "What is it about?" The addressed can also be followed by walking on the street with banners or signing petitions (which is necessary and important and is currently more than less to happen in Germany).

However, Andreas Johnsen gives us a little more - he shows us how someone feels that is in a distress that arises from attacks by other distress, he shows us as artistically as it is emphatically.

Andreas Johnsen's documentary is actually nothing more than a lesson in empathy, empathy and empathy, a basic ability that we need to successfully exist as a community - and which inevitably falls inevitably in a way that is increasingly limited by moral borders.

Ai Weiwei also gives us a little more - he does not just call up to turmoil against injustices, he complains of conditions by drawing the attention of art - many incredibly beautiful works of art, in the article "Ai Weiwei - Never Sorry About Oppression" you can read more details about it. You can find out more about the content of Ai Weiwei's commitment in the article "Ai Weiwei - Art and Ruilance of an indomitable" .

In the spring of 2014, Ai Weisweis film "The Fake Case" came to our cinemas, which can only be advised quote from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

The Fake Case makes the truth a weapon. Be sure to have a look. "