Total Trust

Jialing Zhang / Germany, Netherlands / 2023 / Czech Premiere / 97 min.

synopsis

A documentary dystopia set in contemporary China shows where the use of advanced digital tools of surveillance and control can take a society, especially when they are in the hands of the leaders of a totalitarian establishment. Dissidents and their families are the most painfully affected by universal surveillance. Institutionalised harassment takes many forms – from street surveillance and preventing people from leaving the house to the installation of intrusive cameras near the home, house arrest and internment in an unknown location. In a world where artificial intelligence and big data track our every public utterance, the state itself may eventually become the prison and our homes the cells.

“We didn’t just want to do a film about surveillance but about the people living in this kind of society.”

Source: Variety Magazine

biography

Jialing Zhang is a Chinese filmmaker who graduated from New York University and now lives in Massachusetts. She previously worked for seven years as a freelance journalist in Beijing. In her documentaries, she focuses on conflicting issues in Chinese society, be it the one-child policy or emigration.