A touring program of Uyghur documentaries will run in Washington from September 23 to 25, bringing together feature-length and short films that have drawn attention at human-rights festivals in Prague, Geneva, and elsewhere.
Eyes of the Machine, which has received strong notices at recent festival screenings, follows Kalbinur Sidik, a Uyghur woman now living in the Netherlands. The film traces how digital surveillance, technical controls, and related security practices have entered everyday life in the region, while also documenting her search for her husband and other missing relatives.
All Static and Noise, five years in the making and filmed across seven countries, centers on Jewher Ilham's campaign to secure the release of her father, Ilham Tohti, the Uyghur economist and writer who was sentenced to life in prison in 2014. The film also follows several Uyghurs who fled China and recount their own experiences, or those of family members, in detention facilities.
In Search of My Sister, directed by Jawad Mir, follows Rushan Abbas, executive director of the Campaign for Uyghurs and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, as she tries to learn what happened to her sister, who was taken into custody in Xinjiang in 2018. Abbas has repeatedly asked Chinese authorities where her sister is; she says she has never received an answer.
In addition, three short films grouped under the title Fleeing Xinjiang are part of the screening program. Survivors featured in the films and Uyghur scholars will take part in post-screening discussions. These documentaries show the scale, facts, evidence and suffering of genocide from the perspective of Uyghurs in diaspora, and aim to help audiences in Washington and across the United States understand what is happening in East Turkistan.
The series is presented by Scholars at Risk and the Campaign for Uyghurs. George Washington University, Monroe Gallery and Cafritz Hall Cinema in Washington, D.C., have joined as screening partners.
Tickets
Cafritz Hall Cinema: https://cafritzhall.com/events/on-record
