Hooligan Sparrow

The danger is palpable as filmmaker Nanfu Wang follows Ye Haiyan (a.k.a Hooligan Sparrow) and her band of activists to southern China, where they protest the case of six elementary schoolgirls who were sexually abused by their principal. Marked as enemies of the state, they are under constant surveillance and face interrogation, harassment and imprisonment. Sparrow, renowned for her advocacy for sex workers’ rights, does not give up and arms herself with the power of social media. Wang, too, faces intimidation and destroyed cameras, but keeps on shooting, guerrilla-style, smuggles her footage out of China, and eventually edits her brave journey into a fascinating and disturbing documentary.