China International Censors

A Chinese consulate in the U.S. has contacted the Palm Beach International Film Festival to warn them about a harmful movie they will screen that documents the violent persecution of a Chinese spiritual practice by communist authorities.

The consulate in Houston repeatedly called an organizer of the film festival making inquiries about the film, according to a spokesperson who did not want to be named, in a telephone interview with The Epoch Times: They called asking questions, telling us that they thought it would be potentially harmful to them,

The consular official was told that We're in America, according to the individual, and that the film would be shown nevertheless.

Michael Perlman, the filmmaker, understood the calls from the consulate to be an attempt at censorship:

This brazen attempt to silence free speech and expression of an American citizen in the United States by the Chinese government is dangerous and must be exposed so that these actions will not be repeated.

The documentary that aroused the phone calls is titled Free China: The Courage to Believe , and was directed by artist and activist Michael Perlman. It will be screened publicly for the first time at the Palm Beach International Film Festival on April 14 and 16.

Free China documents the persecution of Falun Gong, a popular Chinese spiritual practice, through the stories of two adherents who have been incarcerated and tortured by Chinese authorities because of their beliefs.

Executives at the Hollywood studio, Paramount have been worrying about a minor plot point in the $175 million zombie film, World War Z , which stars Brad Pitt.

In the 'offending scene', characters debate the geographic origin of an outbreak that caused a zombie apocalypse and point to China, a Paramount executive told TheWrap.

The fast-rising prominence of the Chinese market, state censorship and the tight quotas for U.S. releases, the studio advised the movie producers to drop the reference to China and cite a different country as a possible source of the pandemic, an executive with knowledge of the film told TheWrap.

The change was made in recent days in the hopes of landing a deal for one of Paramount's biggest summer movies to play in China.

Chinese embassy officials in France and Thailand appear bent on fostering fear and disgust with recent efforts to harass and intimidate France 24 reporter Cyril Payen.

Payen, who recently returned from Tibet after filming an undercover documentary, Seven days in Tibet , has received a barrage of harassing phone calls, text messages, and thinly veiled threats from Chinese officials, apparently from embassies in Paris and Bangkok, according to a report by France 24 and the journalist himself.

Following the release of Payen's film on May 30, Chinese embassy officials showed up at the headquarters of France 24 in Paris, demanding that the documentary be removed from the channel's website, France 24 said. The channel refused.