A moving Chinese epic looking at the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, the one-child policy and forced abortion made it past censors to premiere at the Berlin film festival Thursday despite a widening crackdown. ‘Di jiu tian chang’ (So Long, My Son) by Wang Xiaoshuai, clocking in at more than three hours, is a sweeping allegorical drama about two families whose fates become intricately intertwined across 30 years of dramatic change in their country. Its world premiere comes just days after two Chinese filmmakers — veteran Zhang Yimou and Derek Kwok-cheung Tsang — had to withdraw their Berlinale entries, reportedly due to official disapproval. Zhang’s ‘Yi miao zhong’ (One Second) is set during the Cultural Revolution, still a highly sensitive subject in China, while Tsang’s ‘Better Days’ deals with delinquent youth. Wang told reporters in Berlin after a warmly received press preview that he was “shocked” when he heard his colleagues’ films had been pulled. He said he did not know what they might have done to fall afoul of screeners but acknowledged that in China, “everyone, when you make a film, faces difficulties and challenges”. While his own film dealt with “sensitive, painful” issues in modern Chinese memory, he said it got the dragon seal of approval to screen at the Berlinale because he had “followed the rules” set out by censors. “The more change you have in a society, the more careful and meticulous you have to be in documenting it,” he said. Published in Daily Times, February 17th 2019.