175 minutes / Color
Mandarin / English subtitles
Release: 2021
Copyright: 2021
In her debut film, director Qiong Wang builds a riveting portrait of her family reckoning with the lasting impact of China's one-child policy.
After giving birth to two daughters, Qiong's parents were desperate for a boy. When they learned that they were pregnant with a third daughter, the couple embarked on a path that would affect their family for generations to come.
Filming for more than seven years, Ms. Wang courageously investigates her family's shocking history. Intimate, powerful interviews with her parents and siblings and a keen eye for detail create a never-before-seen view of the one-child policy at its peak and the echoes that still haunt a family and their community today.
“An astonishing feature debut. [Ms. Wang captures] vulnerability, joy, pain, and anguish with insight and delicate artistry. A major new voice in nonfiction cinema.” —The New York Film Festival
“Watching Wang Qiong’s debut documentary All About My Sisters, I cannot help but wonder if Chinese film is entering a new stage in history.” —Reverse Shot
“A remarkable movie and a remarkable achievement. A panorama of family history entwined with a portrait of China in recent years. Seek this movie out!” —Robin Hood Radio "Films in Focus"
“Equally shattering is ‘All About My Sisters’, Wang Qiong’s brutally honest reckoning with China’s “one child” policy which, especially during the 1980s and ’90s, made abortion—even late into the third trimester—a deeply discomfiting fact for many families. Wang records her family for three hours of intimate, emotionally devastating reminiscences and confessions, showing how the thoughtless and irreversible edicts of Communist leadership played havoc with the very definition of family, and how Wang’s siblings, parents, and other relatives have come to terms with what decades of deceits, denials and admissions have wrought.” —Flip Side Reviews
“Recommended! Illustrates a country’s extreme state birth control project and the deep personal and psychological effects that still permeate many Chinese families today.” —Educational Media Reviews Online (EMRO)
Select Accolades
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