EYE FOR FILM – Examining the human rights pros and cons of the internet in terms of citizen journalism and global surveillance.

Its principal plus point is the degree to which it focuses on the importance of the internet in economically disadvantaged countries which are often ignored by such analyses. There’s an express recognition here that where the internet was once damaged by rich Western and Northern nations, it is having its most dramatic effect in the global South and East as access to information and the potential for mass communication reaches people who in many cases have previously enjoyed only a basic education and have had little chance to influence the world around them. Through the excitement of new opportunities brought about by this, De Pencier weaves cautionary tales. He endeavours to equip his viewers with tools through which to better protect their privacy, and he looks at the way cyber technologies have been exploited not just be governments but by political extremists. The internet has liberated minority groups by helping them to connect, but it has also made them vulnerable. It has given women the chance to assert themselves politically, but cultures of rampant misogyny have led, in some cases, to murder. Source: https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/black-code-2016-film-review-by-jennie-kermode

FILMS GONE WILD – VOD Reviews: Jason Loftus and Eric Pedicelli’s ASK NO QUESTIONS

At once both extremely personal and universal, this documentary about a potentially falsified self-immolation in 2001 in Tiananmen Square reflects all the best qualities of true crime and documentary. Ask No Questions feels like an intensely personal story as it focuses on directors Jason Loftus and Eric Pedicelli’s questioning of a self-immolation by members of the group Falun Gong. Despite his very personal investment (himself a practicing member of the Buddhist branch of religion) it maintains a slight air of objectivity as it examines this event to understand the Chinese propaganda and brainwashing state apparatus. Ask No Questions follows the personal account of a journalist held in brainwashing detention centers in China while Loftus and Pedicelli investigate the true nature of a self-immolation all culminating in a paranoid sensation that the Chinese government orchestrated the entire event. Source: http://filmsgonewild.com/vod-reviews-jason-loftus-ask-no-questions-looks-suspected-faked-immolation-suicides-by-the-chinese-government-by-balancing-a-personal-story-with-true-crime-deconstruction/

J.B. Spins – Slamdance ’20: Ask No Questions

The world should be horrified by the evidence of genocide emerging from East Turkestan, but we shouldn’t be so surprised. To a large extent, the Chinese Communist Party is merely repeating the game-plan they used to launch their wholesale crackdown on Falun Dafa (or Falun Gong). Today, Party propaganda tells the world they are simply rotting out terrorists. In the case, of Falun Gong, it was religious extremism. Filmmakers Jason Loftus & Eric Pedicelli ask the hard questions about the incident used to justify the anti-Falun Gong campaign that the Western media should have in the riveting expose documentary, Ask No Questions, which premiered at the 2020 Slamdance Film Festival, in Park City… Source: http://www.jbspins.com/2020/01/slamdance-20-ask-no-questions.html

SALT LAKE DIRT – An Interview with the Filmmakers of ASK NO QUESTIONS

One of the standouts at this year’s Slamdance Film Festival was the documentary Ask No Questions. We were fortunate enough to interview the filmmakers Jason Loftus and Eric Pedicelli during Slamdance and an excerpt from that interview can be found below. Ask No Questions was slated to play at the SF DocFest this year as well. Due to shelter-in-place restrictions the festival has been postponed indefinitely. However, the SF DocFest has partnered with the filmmakers of Ask No Questions to do a one-off online screening to experiment with a festival-style screening in VR. You can see Ask No Questions in this format at various times on April 28th… Source: https://saltlakedirt.com/f/an-interview-with-the-filmmakers-of-ask-no-questions

FILM DOO – real heart and a bleak honesty

It’s the universal message focusing on the dangers around personal information in our social media age that really resonates throughout a film that is as entertaining as it is thoroughly educational and enlightening.