In the last decade, Nanfu Wang has pursued a career and a filmography that seeks out countries that are authoritarian or where fascism is slowly encroaching, like a creeping vine. Her most recent film, the very politically active ‘Night Is Not Eternal’, is a documentary about her comparativist work which she conducted with Cuban activist Rosa María Payá Acevedo after coming out of China. Through the lens of these two activists and their struggles with propaganda, the film emphasizes the cost that people have to pay for freedom but also how to turn the tide of the fight in their favor.
In the early parts of the film, we see how Wang and Rose Maria Acevedo found each other and became friends after a screening of Wang’s first film ‘Hooligan Sparrow’. The daughter of revered activist Oswaldo Payá who was assassinated in 2012 was forced to relocate to Miami, along with her family despite the activism she was doing in Cuba. After their meeting a few years later, Wang spent years capturing Acevedo’s work in Cuba. The death of Fidel Castro shook the country up, but to everyone’s surprise, it was the regime’s military that violently suppressed the demands of the artists and activists for democratic change.
In this part, you find yourself intrigued, pitted against dubious but dynamic characters Acevedo and Wang in a gripping scene. It starts when Acevedo, along with Wang, decides to pursue ground activism only for them both to chicken out, introducing a sense of underlying danger succeeding that decision. They then take a more drastic approach by engaging themselves into policy work which involved multiple meetings with world leaders shifting the narratives in their favor.
The narratives drastically shift at this point, while Nanfu had the feeling of rewriting her youth with activism, Wang gave birth to her first child during Donald Trump’s presidency which ultimately made her view America in a different light. “It does feel like America is becoming less free and more hostile, especially for people like my son,” she recalls sharing a story where she migrated to the United States hoping to find freedom and democracy. Wang also created “In the Same Breath,” along with “One Child Nation,” only for her to recognize that both the Chinese and American governments had made the COVID-19 outbreak worse during the pandemic. The story takes a treacherous turn when Nanfu bumps into Acevedo at one of Trump’s rallies in Florida, followed by “Victims of Communism,” a conservative conference where Acevedo discusses the meaning of these events to her.
She elaborates her views on the issue of transitioning from activism to politics while expanding on her answers.
Wang goes on to make distinctions between her and Acevedos. From the lens of Acevedo, she understands that blame cannot be put on the culture of communism or that of socialism for the issue of inequality in China. Feminist figure Acevedo gave some critique on how China practices parameter faced politics which they globally denounced. Wang, too, pointed out her rediscovery of China as a state ruled by socialist decor but, in all effects a well-honed capitalist state where the elite class hoards riches, workers remain exploited and profits are prioritized over the people. The socio-political conditions of China and the US Wang’s fair exposure tells us that both nations share more similarities than differences and most importantly, both use propaganda to hide these troubling realities from their denizens.
Towards the end, the sanctions concerning the Aug 2009 protest alongside the July Cuban protests were analyzed, such that there was a historical significance connected to them. Both were harshly curated and reigned under political oppression by their respective regimes on growing cosmos of youth willing for change.
In Cuba, the authorities had little choice but to restrict internet access to erase and conceal cellphone footage of the marchers. In China, videos of the protests were not shown on the state-sponsored media. Wang, who is now three years older than Wang, first learned about China in America after Wong resided in the country. But both of them have started fires that are still ablaze today.
As One Child Nation draws to its conclusion, Wang shares, “I didn’t feel any closer to understanding where change will come from than when I started.” And neither will the viewer, though the film is so engaging, so teeming with facts and Wang’s extraordinary insights that by the time it ends, you will experience what feels like a semester of a university course. The evidence of state violence and repression ranging from China and Cuba to the US would make many pessimistic and probably for these reasons this movie is called Night is Not Eternal – the future is always glorious and beautiful and are living on the verge of big changes. True change, Wang does not forget to say, does not have an initial and an endpoint but rather unfolds gently “with its interweavings in history”. And in today’s battle for justice and equality, sometimes knowledge and hope are the most impactful assets one can have.
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