Hooligan Sparrow
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Nanfu Wang
- Mark Monroe
- Nanfu Wang
- Andy Cohen
- Alison Klayman
- Peter Lucas
- Michael Shade
| Hooligan Sparrow | |
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 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Nanfu Wang |
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| Produced by |
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| Starring | Ye Haiyan |
| Narrated by | Nanfu Wang |
| Cinematography | Nanfu Wang |
| Edited by | Nanfu Wang |
| Music by |
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Production companies | |
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Release dates |
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Running time | 83 minutes |
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Hooligan Sparrow is a 2016 documentary film about Ye Haiyan and other Chinese activists written, produced and directed by Nanfu Wang.[3] Ye and other activists, including the human rights lawyers Tang Jitian and Wang Yu, lead protests in Hainan, China, demanding justice for six school girls who were sexually abused by their principal.[4] Soon the protesters, the filmmaker, their families and some acquaintances become targets of harassment by policemen and thugs across different locations in China.[5]
It was the debut film by Wang, a Chinese-born American filmmaker, and earned her various accolades, including a Peabody Award and a Truer than Fiction Independent Spirit Award for emerging filmmakers. Hooligan Sparrow was generally praised by critics.
The documentary is about a child rape case in China (involving a government official) and the protests against it by activists Ye Haiyan, Shan Lihua, Tang Jitian, Wang Jianfen, Jia Lingmin, Wang Yu, and Huang. A photograph of Ye holding a sign that says "Principal, get a room with me and leave the schoolgirls alone" goes viral on Chinese social media, thus raising awareness about the case. Subsequently, Ye is the victim of severe harassment by policemen and thugs (who, the succession of events imply, act on behalf of Chinese authorities). As Nanfu Wang films the activists, she herself becomes the subject of harassment from state actors responding to her efforts to document the activists' work. The film is composed of footage captured surreptitiously and smuggled out of the country by Wang, with two scenes captured by an activist, a friend of Ye, called Huang. It is Huang's footage that allows the film to include a scene in which some thugs take the camera from Wang outside a court that is hearing a lawsuit filed by Ye against the police. About that lawsuit, Nanfu Wang narrates in voice-over that Ye filed it and the human rights lawyer Wang Yu involved herself in it even though "we all knew the result before we even got there".
Production
Wang said that she decided to make the film because,
I was interested in many, many topics like the healthcare system and the educational system in China because I didn't go to high school or college in China. Another topic that interested me was sex workers because, like I said, I grew up in a village and I had seen a lot of women from the village who didn't have access to education and they end up becoming sex workers because they did not have skills, they did not have education and they were really discriminated against. So, I wanted to make a film about the poorest sex workers in the country, but I also knew that it would be hard to get access to them. I've known Hooligan Sparrow–her name is Ye Haiyan–for a long time through social media, but I had never seen her in person at the time.[6]
When creating the film, Wang was not aware that this would make her a target for government surveillance, later stating that she "knew very little about the activist world".[6] Wang has noted that her family and friends were followed and interrogated by officers who questioned whether or not they knew her, her whereabouts, and her current actions.[6]
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