First-time mother and filmmaker Nanfu Wang uncovers the untold history of China's One-Child policy and the generations of parents and children forever shaped by this social experiment.... (Full plot summary below)
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First-time mother and filmmaker Nanfu Wang uncovers the untold history of China's One-Child policy and the generations of parents and children forever shaped by this social experiment.
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| The New York TimesManohla DargisSoul-baring and furious, the documentary One Child Nation takes a powerful, unflinching look at China’s present through its past. |
| The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyDensely informative yet always grounded in deep personal investment and clear-eyed compassion, this is a powerful indictment of a traumatic social experiment, made all the more startling by the success of the propaganda machine in making people continue to believe it was necessary. |
| New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinIt’s a devastating film, almost too terrible to contemplate. |
| Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsIn a very full and riveting 85 minutes, One Child Nation assembles a huge story together from many small, crucial pieces. |
| Film ThreatDante JamesThis is a documentary that is very difficult to stomach. |
| Washington PostMark JenkinsOne Child Nation covers a lot of a territory, and many of its topics need to be covered in more depth. But the directors structure the narrative effectively, and they deftly expand from the personal to the historical. This is an important film, if often a difficult one to watch. |
| The PlaylistGary GarrisonWang’s film is intimate, thought-provoking and well-crafted. It condemns the horrors of the policy without condemning those who were brainwashed into being its vessels, and it gives voice to so many families whose agency was stolen from them. |
| IndieWireEric KohnUsing a remarkable personal lens, the film examines the reverberations of propaganda on broken families across multiple generations. The cumulative effect creates the sense that its destructive effects continue to be felt well beyond China’s borders. |
| Screen InternationalJohn BerraOne Child Nation is an utterly compelling documentary that examines the consequences of this staunchly enforced ‘social experiment’. If it stops short of making an explicit political statement, a series of powerful testimonies leaves a harrowing micro-level impression. |
| Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangThe individual stories that make up One Child Nation, the worthy winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s grand jury prize for U.S. documentaries, illuminate an entire history of institutional corruption, medical brutality and pervasive misogyny — a history that was both masked and advanced by a national propaganda campaign of near-Orwellian absurdity. |
