Guests Expected
Director Cheryl Haines, artist and subject Ai Weiwei, and whistleblower and prisoner of conscience John Kiriakou expected to attend.
Description
Ai Weiwei, famous for his large-scale installation work and his dogged social justice advocacy, created a career-defining work in 2015 with @Large, mounted at Alcatraz, the emblematic site associated with egregious incarceration conditions and radical Native American protest. At the core of @Large were portraits of prisoners of conscience coupled with the opportunity to write letters of solidarity to the imprisoned. In her impassioned and powerful film, exhibition curator Cheryl Haines visits several current and former prisoners, including American whistleblower Chelsea Manning, and learns how these letters were vital to their survival.
“The misconception of totalitarianism is that freedom can be imprisoned. This is not the case. When you constrain freedom, freedom will take flight and land on a windowsill.”
— Ai Weiwei
Sponsored by
With support from
Leslie Berriman & Nion McEvoy
Cheryl Haines in the long-time owner of the Haines Gallery in San Francisco where she has featured artists that include Ai Weiwei and Andy Goldsworthy. She is also the founding executive director of the FOR-SITE Foundation, an organization dedicated to art about place. Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly is her first film.
Trailer
Film Details
Year 2019
Language English
Premiere World
Runtime 76
Country USA
Director Cheryl Haines
Producer Cheryl Haines, Christy McGill, Cassandra Jabola
Editor Gina Leibrecht
Cinematographer Jan Stürmann, Dana Smillie
Music Wendy Blackstone
