Hong Kong director Wayne Wang hit out at Chinese censorship late last month as he presented his latest film A Thousand Years of Good Prayers about the Chinese immigrant experience in the US, at the San Sebastian Film Festival.
"I'm a little sad when I see people that can't make their movies in China. It's kind of depressing that censorship is still happening in an economically powerful China," he said.
Wang revealed that China was to have stumped up half the budget for the film but pulled out because it objected to a line in the script where a character says: "Communism is good, it just got into bad hands."
PHOTO:EPA
He explained: "They said you have to quit the line. But I didn't because I live in a democratic country."
The director has long been based in the United States and his parents fled for Hong Kong after the Communist takeover of 1949.
Asked about his thoughts on China's hosting of next year's Olympics, Wang said that the country would be welcoming but that when it came to press freedom he felt pessimistic.
"I think they will be open to foreigners, they will be very nice and let the journalists write about 80 to 90 percent of what they want, even criticize.
"But when Chinese journalists will want to write, they won't be able to.
"They (the authorities) will try to hide the problems and there are so many problems in China growing so fast," Wang said, while observing that "I hardly get information from China."
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers won the Best Film award at the festival.(afp)
上個月下旬，香港導演王穎在西班牙聖塞瓦斯蒂安影展上介紹他的最新電影「千年敬祈」時，不忘抨擊中國的審查制度。「千年敬祈」是一部描述美國的中國移民的故事。
「當我知道在中國，人們無法拍自己想拍的電影時，我有點難過。在經濟強盛的中國，審查制度依舊存在，令人心灰意冷，」他說。
王穎透露中國原本打算資助一半的預算，但最後卻因為反對電影劇本中的一句台詞而撤資，該句台詞說：「共產主義的本意是好的，只是落入壞人之手。」
他解釋：「他們說你必須要拿掉那一句台詞，但是我並沒有拿掉，因為我住在一個民主的國家。」
王導演長期旅居美國，他的雙親在一九四九年共產黨接管政權後，逃至香港。
當王穎被問到他對中國主辦明年奧運的看法時，他說中國會很熱情歡迎各國，但當談到有關新聞自由時，他卻對此表示悲觀。
「我覺得他們對外籍人士的態度開放且非常友善，外籍記者可以報導８０％至９０％他們想寫的內容，甚至是批評。」
「但是當中國媒體想要報導時，卻沒辦法這麼做。」
「他們（有關當局）會試著隱瞞問題，現在中國有許多問題正快速浮現，」王說，他發現到，「我很難在中國得到任何資訊。」
「千年敬祈」一片贏得了聖塞瓦斯蒂安影展的最佳影片獎。（法新社／翻譯：楊鴻泰）
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