Ai Weiwei: Never SorryMovies like Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
- Key Features:
- Documentary, Political activism, Censorship, Human rights, Art history, Political oppression, Freedom of speech, Social justice, Biography, Activism
- Tone:
- serious, earnest, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Documentary viewers, Art enthusiasts, Political activists, Human rights advocates
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Anxiety → Defiance
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

An account of the many tribulations that Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, known for his subversive art and political activism, endured between 2008 and 2011, from his rise to world fame via the Internet to his highly publicized arrest due to his frequent and daring confrontations with the Chinese authorities.
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
When the Chinese Communist Party backtracks on its promise of autonomy to Hong Kong, teenager Joshua Wong decides to save his city. Rallying thousands of kids to skip school and occupy the streets, Joshua becomes an unlikely leader in Hong Kong and one of China’s most notorious dissidents.

The Square looks at the hard realities faced day-to-day by people working to build Egypt’s new democracy. Cairo’s Tahrir Square is the heart and soul of the film, which follows several young activists. Armed with values, determination, music, humor, an abundance of social media, and sheer obstinacy, they know that the thorny path to democracy only began with Hosni Mubarak’s fall. The life-and-death struggle between the people and the power of the state is still playing out.

The life of internationally renowned artist and activist Nan Goldin is told through her slideshows, intimate interviews, ground-breaking photography, and rare footage of her personal fight to hold the Sackler family accountable for the overdose crisis.

Greta Thunberg, a 15-year-old student in Sweden, started a school strike for the climate as her question for adults was, if you don’t care about my future on earth, why should I care about my future in school? Within months, her strike evolved into a global movement as the quiet teenage girl on the autism spectrum becomes a world-famous activist.

A documentary on the life of John Lennon, with a focus on the time in his life when he transformed from a musician into an antiwar activist.

More than 65 million people around the world have been forced from their homes to escape famine, climate change and war, the greatest displacement since World War II. Filmmaker Ai Weiwei examines the staggering scale of the refugee crisis and its profoundly personal human impact. Over the course of one year in 23 countries, Weiwei follows a chain of urgent human stories that stretch across the globe, including Afghanistan, France, Greece, Germany and Iraq.

Through interviews with both victims and instigators, Nanfu Wang, a first-time mother, breaks open decades of silence on a vast, unprecedented social experiment that shaped — and destroyed — countless lives in China.

A movie fan escapes from a labour camp during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and strikes up a relationship with a homeless female vagabond.

Five shorts reveal a fictional Hong Kong in 2025, depicting a dystopian city where residents and activists face crackdowns under iron-fisted rule.

In 1945, as Stalin sets his hands over Poland, famous painter Wladislaw Strzeminski refuses to compromise on his art with the doctrines of social realism. Persecuted, expelled from his chair at the University, he's eventually erased from the museums' walls. With the help of some of his students, he starts fighting against the Party and becomes the symbol of an artistic resistance against intellectual tyranny.

The absorbingly cinematic Ascension explores the pursuit of the “Chinese Dream.” Driven by mesmerizing—and sometimes humorous—imagery, this observational documentary presents a contemporary vision of China that prioritizes productivity and innovation above all.

In June 2013, Laura Poitras and reporter Glenn Greenwald flew to Hong Kong for the first of many meetings with Edward Snowden. She brought her camera with her.

A young man recalls his childhood growing up in a poor alley in Beijing during the 1950s and 1960s.

Programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz achieved groundbreaking work in social justice and political organizing. His passion for open access ensnared him in a legal nightmare that ended with the taking of his own life at the age of 26.

Data—arguably the world’s most valuable asset—is being weaponized to wage cultural and political wars. The dark world of data exploitation is uncovered through the unpredictable, personal journeys of players on different sides of the explosive Cambridge Analytica/Facebook data story.

The courtroom and publicity battles between the superstar wrestler and the notorious website explode in a sensational trial all about the limits of the First Amendment and the new no holds barred nature of celebrity life in an internet dominated society.

Li Xuelian, a woman from the countryside is falsely accused by her husband of having an affair. To defend herself, Li moves from her small town to the big city until she reached the capital.

A comic, biting and revelatory documentary following a small group of prankster activists as they gain worldwide notoriety for impersonating the World Trade Organization (WTO) on television and at business conferences around the world.

The story of a family embroiled in the "White Terror," the Kuomintang government's anti-communist political repression that was wrought on the Taiwanese people from 1947-1987.

The story of Aung San Suu Kyi as she becomes the core of Burma's democracy movement, and her relationship with her husband, writer Michael Aris.

The Cove tells the amazing true story of how an elite team of individuals, films makers and free divers embarked on a covert mission to penetrate the hidden cove in Japan, shining light on a dark and deadly secret. The shocking discoveries were only the tip of the iceberg.

Edvard Munch's childhood is overshadowed by death: he suffers the loss of his sister and mother, while enduring serious illness himself, almost dying. At university, Munch discovers his talent as a painter. As he immerses himself in the art world, he becomes part of a cultural revolution lead by the likes of nihilist Hans Jæger.

A look at modern-day life in China's capital centered on a ménage-a-quatre involving a young woman, her boss, her husband and her boss's wife.

A dramatic story, based on actual events, about the friendship between two men struggling against apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s. Donald Woods is a white liberal journalist in South Africa who begins to follow the activities of Stephen Biko, a courageous and outspoken black anti-apartheid activist.

With unprecedented access, this documentary follows the extraordinary journey of “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently”—a group of anonymous citizen journalists who banded together after their homeland was overtaken by ISIS—as they risk their lives to stand up against one of the greatest evils in the world today.

China’s rapid changes from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, as seen through the lives of four performers in a theater troupe.

An amateur fighter is lured by a trafficking syndicate specializing in elite underground fighting where her brutal captor forces her to fight or face certain death.

A biography of artist Frida Kahlo, who channeled the pain of a crippling injury and her tempestuous marriage into her work.

Neil Shaw is both agent and weapon - a critical line of defense for the Secretary General of the United Nations. He does not even officially exist. As an international security expert, he must uncover an international plot in which ruthless terrorists threatened to bring down the United Nations on the eve of an historic summit with China. A mysterious chain of events leads to the murder of the Chinese U.N. Ambassador and the terrorists frame Neil Shaw, the one man they believe can stop them. Accused of the crime, Shaw goes underground — in effect, vanishing from his own life — as he tries to stop what could become World War III.

This film made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective shows the destruction of the occupied West Bank's Masafer Yatta by Israeli soldiers and the alliance which develops between the Palestinian activist Basel and Israeli journalist Yuval.

In a war-ridden country, a woman watches over her husband, comatose from a bullet in the neck and abandoned by Jihad companions and brothers. One day, the woman decides to say things to him she could never have done before.

A warrior named Dahufa goes to save his prince from a dystopian village. He finds the dystopian village ruled by a fake god and his guards. In order to save the prince, Dahufa has to defeat the god and his men, and disclose the whole conspiracy.

A love story between a country boy in Beijing to study and a wealthy businessman set against the backdrop of the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident.

A small group of French students are studying Mao, trying to find out their position in the world and how to change the world to a Maoistic community using terrorism.

During China's Warring States period, a district prefect arrives at the palace of Qin Shi Huang, claiming to have killed the three assassins who had made an attempt on the king's life three years ago.

A boxer and a journalist accidentally exchange bodies after they are struck by current, embarking a series of adventures.

Capturing the story of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with unprecedented access, director Laura Poitras finds herself caught between the motives and contradictions of Assange and his inner circle in a documentary portrait of power, betrayal, truth and sacrifice.

The career of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo is halted by a witch hunt in the late 1940s when he defies the anti-communist HUAC committee and is blacklisted.

THE YES MEN FIX THE WORLD is a screwball true story about two gonzo political activists who, posing as top executives of giant corporations, lie their way into big business conferences and pull off the world's most outrageous pranks.

An intense and imaginative artist, revered Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh possesses undeniable talent, but he is plagued by mental problems and frustrations with failure. Supported by his brother, Theo, the tormented Van Gogh eventually leaves Holland for France, where he meets volatile fellow painter Paul Gauguin and struggles to find greater inspiration.

In the northern Chinese city of Manzhouli, they say there is an elephant that simply sits and ignores the world. Manzhouli becomes an obsession for the protagonists of this film, a longed-for escape from the downward spiral in which they find themselves.

Set in the People's Republic of China during the 1990s, the film centers on a 13-year-old substitute teacher, Wei Minzhi, in the Chinese countryside. Called in to substitute for a village teacher for one month, Wei is told not to lose any students.

China's first President Sun Yat-Sen and military commander Huang Xing lead the revolutionary Wuchang Uprising in a bid to put an end to the reign of the Qing Dynasty.

Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.

When her husband is kicked in the groin by the village head, Qiu Ju, a peasant woman, despite her pregnancy, travels to a nearby town, and later a big city to deal with its bureaucrats and find justice.

Artists in LA discover the work of forgotten Polish sculptor Stanislav Szukalski, a mad genius whose true story unfolds chapter by astounding chapter.

After the earthquake of Guilan, a film director and his son travel to the devastated area to search for the actors from the movie the director made there a few years previously. In their search, they see how people who have lost everything in the earthquake still have hope and try to live life to the fullest.

This candid New York love story explores the chaotic 40-year marriage of famed boxing painter Ushio Shinohara and his wife, Noriko. Anxious to shed her role as her overbearing husband's assistant, Noriko finds an identity of her own.

Follows the man who survived an assassination attempt by poisoning with a lethal nerve agent in August 2020. During his months-long recovery, he makes shocking discoveries about the attempt on his life and decides to return home.

Yuma, a 23-year-old comic book artist with profound cerebral palsy, has been emotionally stunted by her well-meaning but overprotective mother. As she begins to seek independence and sexual awakening on her own terms, she discovers an unexpected path to love and forgiveness.

A group of performing art troupe members each face their own trials and tribulations in Chengdu; from escaping a family scandal to dealing with unrequited love, each experiences rejection that shapes their lives.

Song Woo-seok is a lawyer with no clients. When his friend's son is falsely accused of a crime and tortured, he takes up the case and the course of his life changes for good.

Wong Fei-Hung faces the White Lotus Society, a fanatical cult seeking to drive the Europeans out of China through violence, even attacking Chinese who follow Western ways. Wong must also defend Dr. Sun Yat Sen, a revolutionary, from the military.

Documentary filmmaker Genya Tachibana has tracked down the legendary actress Chiyoko Fujiwara, who mysteriously vanished at the height of her career. When he presents her with a key she had lost and thought was gone forever, the filmmaker could not have imagined that it would not only unlock the long-held secrets of Chiyoko’s life... but also his own.

Journalist Shiori Ito embarks on a courageous investigation of her own sexual assault in an improbable attempt to prosecute her high-profile offender. Her quest becomes a landmark case in Japan, exposing the country's outdated judicial and societal systems.

When a woman visits a Chinese doctor, she discovers her pain is due to pent-up rage, and the only cure is to fully express herself, whatever may come.

While The Rolling Stones rehearse "Sympathy for the Devil" in the studio, an alternating narrative reflects on 1968 society, politics and culture through five different vignettes.

When a scroll containing valuable martial arts secrets is stolen from the Emperor, an army detachment is sent to recover it. It is based on the novel The Smiling, Proud Wanderer by Jinyong.

Silvio refuses to fight for the fascists and joins the resistance with Elena. After the war, his vitriolic newspaper articles cause him to be sentenced to imprisonment.

After going through a series of tragic events in his life, martial arts master Huo Yuanjia returns to Tianjin and must fight four international soldiers, in order to safeguard his nation's pride.

Bastien, an ambitious young production assistant, catches the attention of Jean-Louis, a producer of high regard, and is granted a shot at his own television show.

Three orphans grow up to become art thieves under the tutelage of a crime boss. Romance complicates matters when the trio are double-crossed.

A documentary on the life of Amy Winehouse, the immensely talented yet doomed songstress. We see her from her teen years, where she already showed her singing abilities, to her finding success and then her downward spiral into alcoholism and drugs.

Science fiction has long anticipated the rise of machine intelligence, and today a new generation of self-learning computers has begun to reshape every aspect of our lives. Will A.I. usher in an age of unprecedented potential, or prove to be our final invention?

The story of the rape of Nanking, one of the most tragic events in history. In 1937, the invading Japanese army murdered over 200,000 and raped tens of thousands of Chinese. In the midst of this horror, a small group of Western expatriates banded together to save 250,000. Nanking shows the tremendous impact individuals can make on the course of history.

A look at the events leading up to the Taliban's attack on the young Pakistani school girl, Malala Yousafzai, for speaking out on girls' education and the aftermath, including her speech to the United Nations.

A few years after the Anshi Rebellion, Tang dynasty military commander Gao Shi suffers a defeat in a battle threatening Chang'an. Trapped in the besieged city, he recalls his lifelong friendship with the acclaimed poet Li Bai.

In 1937, during the height of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Imperial Japanese Army has just captured Nanjing, then-capital of the Republic of China. What followed was known as the Nanking Massacre, or the Rape of Nanking, a six week period wherein tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed.

Italy, 1970. An increasing legion of harmless warriors begins a peaceful struggle for sexual freedom through pornography, shaking and shocking religious authorities and conservative political institutions. They are ironic, happy, crazy. They are dreamers, defenders of definitive communion between body and soul. But they were censored and humiliated. They were mistreated and arrested for demanding loud a new cultural renaissance.

A renowned ophthalmologist is desperate to cut off an adulterous relationship…which ends up in murder; and a frustrated documentary filmmaker woos an attractive television producer while making a film about her insufferably self-centered boss.

An unsettling and eye-opening Wall Street horror story about Chinese companies, the American stock market, and the opportunistic greed behind the biggest heist you've never heard of.

The life of Henri Grouès, known as Abbé Pierre, from his time in the Resistance in WWII to his fights against poverty and for the homeless.

At once an intimate chronicle of a romance and a sprawling portrait of life in early 1990s France following the intertwining journeys of Jacques, a worldly Parisian writer, and Arthur, a curious, carefree and much-younger university student who is just beginning to live. Brought together by chance, the two men find themselves navigating a casual fling that gradually deepens into a tender, transformative bond.

Halla declares a one-woman-war on the local aluminium industry. She is prepared to risk everything to protect the pristine Icelandic Highlands she loves… Until an orphan unexpectedly enters her life.

Set against the backdrop of Iran's strict and oppressive legal system, this anthology film tells the stories of four men who each face a moral crisis when having to deal with death penalties.

When a fellow scientist asks for Jack's help in locating the mausoleum of China's first emperor, the past collides violently with the present as Jack discovers his amazing visions are based in fact.

The brief life of Jean Michel Basquiat, a world renowned New York street artist struggling with fame, drugs and his identity.

The inside story of the rise and fall of Harvey Weinstein reveals how, over decades, he acquired and protected his power even when scandal threatened to engulf him. Former colleagues and accusers detail the method and consequences of his alleged abuse, hoping for justice and also to inspire change.

A true-story account of a German businessman who saved more than 200,000 Chinese during the Nanjing massacre in 1937-38.

Lei Li lost his right-arm in a sword duel with the master of a martial arts school, long ago. Now, he is able to defend himself well with just his left arm, and kung fu techniques. That he proves with just the help of his friend Chung-Chieng, when he crosses his path with a beautiful girl in need, Pao Chiao. Even against impossible odds, he will prove a great warrior.

Li and his wife A Yu run a small business in Thailand and enjoy a happy home life with their two daughters. When their eldest daughter is violently assaulted, blackmailed and left traumatised by another student, her parents intervene, leading to a dead body which needs to be hidden, and every trace of the boy buried to cover up the accident.

Jamie Fitzpatrick and Nona Alberts are two women from opposites sides of the social and economic track, but they have one thing in common: a mission to fix their community's broken school and ensure a bright future for their children. The two women refuse to let any obstacles stand in their way as they battle a bureaucracy that's hopelessly mired in traditional thinking, and they seek to re-energize a faculty that has lost its passion for teaching.

Exiled artist and poet Mustafa embarks on a journey home with his housekeeper and her daughter; together the trio must evade the authorities who fear that the truth in Mustafa's words will incite rebellion.

Two boys meet at an opera training school in Peking in 1924. Their resulting friendship will span nearly 70 years and endure some of the most troublesome times in China's history.

Passionate about ocean life, a filmmaker sets out to document the harm that humans do to marine species — and uncovers an alarming global conspiracy.

Based on true events about the foot soldiers of the early feminist movement, women who were forced underground to pursue a dangerous game of cat and mouse with an increasingly brutal State.

An expansive Russian drama, this film focuses on the life of revered religious icon painter Andrei Rublev. Drifting from place to place in a tumultuous era, the peace-seeking monk eventually gains a reputation for his art. But after Rublev witnesses a brutal battle and unintentionally becomes involved, he takes a vow of silence and spends time away from his work. As he begins to ease his troubled soul, he takes steps towards becoming a painter once again.

Atop the ruins of war, top commander Jiang Ziya is given the task to banish the Nine-tailed Fox Demon who threatens all mortals' very existence. When he discovers the Nine-tailed Fox's life linked to the soul of an innocent girl, he is faced with a challenging decision: follow the will of heaven or find his own path to righteousness.

Tells the early history of how conflict began between the humans and machines. Part 1 of 2.

A documentary feature film about the biggest global corruption scandal in history, and the hundreds of journalists who risked their lives to break the story.

Her rise was a global phenomenon. Her downfall was a cruel national sport. People close to Britney Spears and lawyers tied to her conservatorship now reassess her career as she battles her father in court over who should control her life.

Patrick is a tenacious lawyer specializing in environmental law. France is a schoolteacher who becomes an activist after her husband develops cancer from exposure to a pesticide. Mathias is an ambitious lobbyist working for an international chemical corporation. The paths of these characters collide as the lives of thousands are affected by a tragic act that sparks a powerful movement while the corporation fights to prevent the truth from being revealed.

Based on the tragic true story of China's first prima donna of the silver screen, Ruan Lingyu, chronicling her rise to fame as a movie actress in Shanghai during the 1930s.

A railroad worker in China in 1941 leads a team of freedom fighters against the Japanese in order to get food for the poor.

A poor young man is wrongly charged with drug trafficking after being deceived. An ex-prosecutor investigates the case, uncovers a corrupt lawyer team's scheme, and restores justice despite obstruction from evil forces.

When a feminist filmmaker sets out to document the mysterious and polarizing world of the Men’s Rights Movement, she begins to question her own beliefs. Chronicling Cassie Jaye’s journey exploring an alternate perspective on gender equality, power and privilege.

Falsely accused for cheating in a martial arts competition, two boyhood friends are banished from their Shaolin Temple and go their separate ways. As adults, they join opposing sides in a civil war. When one betrays the other, they settle their differences mano-a-mano.


