Letter from Masanjia

Letter from Masanjia
Directed byLeon Lee
Written byCaylan Ford
Leon Lee
Produced byLeon Lee
StarringSun Yi
Julie Keith
CinematographyMarcus Fung
Edited byPatrick Carroll
Music byMichael Richard Plowman
Production
company
Flying Cloud Productions
Release date
  • April 27, 2018 (2018-04-27) (Hot Docs)
Running time
75 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish

Letter from Masanjia is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Leon Lee and released in 2018.[1] The film profiles the case of Sun Yi, a Chinese Falun Gong practitioner turned political prisoner who was responsible for exposing significant human rights abuses at the Masanjia Labor Camp when his letter was found by Oregon resident Julie Keith in a box of Halloween decorations, and made headlines worldwide.[2] The discovery of this letter and the subsequent wide coverage by news agencies in part led to China announcing major reforms, and the abolishment of the labor camp system.

The film premiered on April 27, 2018, at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.[3]

The film received a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Feature Length Documentary at the 7th Canadian Screen Awards in 2019.[4]

The film met with high praise. On Rotten Tomatoes it has an approval rating of 100% based on reviews from nine critics.[5]

  1. ^ Jaworowski, Ken (September 13, 2018). "Review: A Prisoner's Smuggled Plea Sets 'Letter From Masanjia' in Motion". The New York Times.
  2. ^ Crust, Kevin (September 13, 2018). "Review: 'Letter from Masanjia' shares heartbreaking story of human rights abuses in China". Los Angeles Times.
  3. ^ Lederman, Marsha (April 26, 2018). "Documentary reveals the man behind the SOS letter from China's notorious Masanjia labour camp". The Globe and Mail.
  4. ^ Walsh, Barry (February 8, 2019). ""Anthropocene", "Amazing Race Canada" among Canadian Screen Award nominees". RealScreen.
  5. ^ "Letter From Masanjia (2018)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. Retrieved 2021-10-10.