When Night Falls

When Wang Jingmei returned home on 1 July 2008, she was met by the police because her son had murdered six policemen. She was taken to a psychiatric hospital where she was held for months without being able to attend the trial or make a statement to support her son.
In the docudrama based on these events, When Night Falls (Best Direction and Actress at Locarno), director-screenwriter Ying Liang focuses in calm scenes on the mother’s silent indignation and sorrow. Back in her poorly heated apartment in Beijing, she desperately wonders whether she can do anything for her son, who is on death row. In the meantime, she is besieged by activists protesting against the dubious court proceedings, a sensitive subject in China.
This affair was also the subject of the documentary One Recluse by the artist and activist Ai Weiwei that was screened last year in Rotterdam.

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