Director's statement

Starting from a portrait of lay Buddhists (Wenhai opposes religious feeling to chaos), We leads us on to meet something more, and more powerful: in a word, dissidents. Not dissidents in the sense associated with the Soviet Union, but a bunch of courageous citizens, no matter whether CCP members or not, who persist in thinking politically (and not just economically) about the future of their country. All these people have the experiences of being oppressed, of being imprisoned, of being harassed by the police, of being censored. All of them have learned how to survive in this country, and how to continue.

The original title of the film was Tamen, which means They. But Wen Hai knows very well that a direcor is also shooting himself while he shoots others. By calling the film They, he would have created distance; the people in the film would appear like a group of strangers. The final cut therefore takes the position: They are We.

Wen Hai has said modestly of his film that he has just tried to capture some images of Chinese citizens. Formidable modesty helps him find a sort of courage in these poet-heroes, since it makes us see and hear the weight of history on a "now" made up of neon lights, mobile phones, skyscrapers, and Olympic games.