In an interview with Michael Guillen, filmmaker Ritu Sarin, who teamed with Tenzing Sonam to direct The Sun Behind the Clouds, a documentary about the Dalai Lama, had this to say about the withdrawal of Chinese films from the Palm Springs International Film Festival in response to their film being part of the lineup:
In the past, with another film of ours that we showed at the Toronto Film Festival, the Chinese consulate did call up the director of the Toronto Film Festival and said, “Would you please remove the film?” They said, “No” and that was the end of it. So we didn’t really expect them to come all the way from Los Angeles and pull out the films. We were really shocked. In the current climate, it seems that the Chinese are flexing their muscles more than they have done because they are so economically strong at this point. It took us by surprise.
Read the rest of the interview with Sarin and Sonam on Guillen’s blog. The Sun Behind the Clouds opens at Film Forum in New York City on March 31.
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