Classical Arts Foundation

Letter From Masanjia

An Oregon woman finds an SOS note from a Chinese dissident in a package of Halloween decorations from Kmart, setting off a chain of events that would shut down the entire labor camp system in China and ignite the note-writer’s dangerous quest to expose a deadly persecution.

 

Awards

      • Canadian Screen Awards Nomination: Ted Rogers Best Feature Documentary

      • Cambridge Film Festival: Silver Punt Audience Award for Best Documentary

      • St. Louis International Film Festival: Best Feature Documentary

      • Hot Docs: Top 20 Audience Favorite

      • Banff Rockie Awards Nomination: Investigative & Current Affairs Programs

      • Leo Awards Winner: Best Screenwriting in a Feature Length Documentary

      • Budapest International Documentary Festival Winner

      • American Asian International Film Festival: Audience Award

      • Doqumenta: Grand Jury Prize for International Documentary

      • Atlanta Docufest: Audience Award

      • Newburyport Documentary Film Festival: Audience Award

      • Calgary International Film Festival: Audience Award for Canadian Documentar

      • Chagrin Falls Documentary Film Festival: Jury Award for International Documentary

      • docsMX: Jury Award for Breaking Doc

      • SIMA Awards: Best Editing in a Feature Documentary

      • Tallgrass Film Festival: Outstanding Animated Film

      • Portland Film Festival: Audience Award

    Synopsis

    Letter from Masanjia begins when mom of two, Julie Keith, finds an SOS note in a box of “Made in China”. Halloween decorations from an Oregon Kmart. The desperate note was written by a political prisoner named Sun Yi, from inside China’s notorious Masanjia labor camp. On the crumpled page that travelled over 5000 miles, he details being jailed for his spiritual beliefs and how he is being subjected to torture and brainwashing tactics. His message goes viral and miraculously leads to the closure of China’s entire labor camp system. But their story is far from over.

    Letter from Masanjia | Teaser

    Peabody-winning Canadian filmmaker Leon Lee is not welcome in his native country because of his prior films about China’s human rights abuses. So, in Letter from Masanjia, he teaches Sun Yi to use camera equipment via Skype. For over a year, he secretly captures harrowing footage of his daily life as a human rights defender, leading up to his tense run from the Chinese authorities. Meanwhile, just outside Portland, Julie Keith is struggling with her own dilemmas as a mother newly embroiled in this cause. Together, these unlikely heroes expose China’s ongoing persecution against millions whose ideology differs from the Chinese government.

    Director’s Biography

    Leon Lee is an award-winning Canadian filmmaker who shines a light on human rights abuses in China. His debut documentary Human Harvest , which was eight years in the making, exposed China’s illegal organ trade. It has been viewed by millions worldwide and received a coveted Peabody Award and an Association of International Broadcasters Award for Investigative Journalism. Lee’s recent documentary Letter from Masanjia premiered at Hot Docs 2018 and has since won numerous awards at festivals worldwide. His goal as a filmmaker is to shine a light on personal true stories that resonate beyond language and culture, giving a voice to the voiceless.

    Main Character’s Biography

    Sun Yi was an engineer from Beijing, China, who began practicing Falun Gong in 1997. When the practice, comprised of tai chi-like exercises and moral principles, was brutally banned in 1999 by the Chinese communist regime, Sun Yi began working to restore his countrymen’s freedom of belief by running underground print shops distributing information about the regime’s officially sanctioned propaganda. Sun Yi was jailed over a dozen times for his activism, including during the Beijing Olympics when he was sent to the notorious Masanjia Labour Camp and nearly tortured to death. Prominent Chinese human rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong defended Sun Yi and secured his release after two and a half years. When a secret SOS letter that

    Sun Yi wrote while imprisoned made its way to a Kmart in Oregon, headlines on CNN and The New York Times helped contribute to the official closure of China’s labour camp system. This prompted Sun Yi to become a filmmaker and to document his entire story and the ongoing repression Chinese citizens still face today. After he was forced to flee China, Sun Yi died suddenly and under mysterious circumstances in Indonesia, in October 2017.