“Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly” Virtual Cinema Release

I write to you with exciting news. After much anticipation, Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly is now available for you to view at home in the US and Canada. Over 30 local theaters, from Hawaii to New York to Ontario, are screening our film. You can find a screening near you by visiting our partner page, First Run Features.

We are so thrilled to offer this virtual theatrical release, and share Ai Weiwei’s powerful and moving work about the fundamental struggle for human rights with you. 

 

Weiwei created the @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz exhibition without ever setting foot on the island. Following his detention, the Chinese government had still prevented him from traveling abroad. Through video calls and email exchanges between San Francisco and China, we crossed the distance and filled Alcatraz with moving images of incarcerated activists. At the exhibition, over 90,00 people were inspired to write and mail postcards to these prisoners of conscience. Filled with messages of solidarity, this simple gesture of writing a postcard had a profound impact on the prisoners.

 

What this exhibition taught us is that each of us can take an individual stand for human rights, no matter how small or removed it may feel. Even now, as most of us stay home in light of this pandemic, our impact can continue to be deeply felt and wide ranging. 

 

As I write this, there are still prisoners of conscience unjustly detained across the globe; they now face even greater threats to their safety with the onset of COVID-19. On our minds are activists such as 24-year old Yasaman Aryani, who stood up against forced veiling laws in Iran, or Sarah Mardini and Seán Binder, who rescued a boat with refugees in Greece. At least 50 activists that had been incarcerated when we made the film are still facing prison sentences to this date.  

 

As you view the film, I also invite you to continue finding ways in which you can make a stand in our global fight for human rights.