28th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival
Total Trust
director: Jialing Zhang
original title: Total Trust
country: Germany, Netherlands
year: 2023
running time: 97 min.
synopsis
A documentary dystopia set in contemporary China shows where the use of advanced digital tools of surveillance and control can take a society, especially when they are in the hands of the leaders of a totalitarian establishment. Dissidents and their families are the most painfully affected by universal surveillance. Institutionalised harassment takes many forms – from street surveillance and preventing people from leaving the house to the installation of intrusive cameras near the home, house arrest and internment in an unknown location. In a world where artificial intelligence and big data track our every public utterance, the state itself may eventually become the prison and our homes the cells.“We didn’t just want to do a film about surveillance but about the people living in this kind of society.”
Source: Variety Magazine
biography
Jialing Zhang is a Chinese filmmaker who graduated from New York University and now lives in Massachusetts. She previously worked for seven years as a freelance journalist in Beijing. In her documentaries, she focuses on conflicting issues in Chinese society, be it the one-child policy or emigration.more about film
| director: | Jialing Zhang |
| producer: | Knut Jäger |
