Concrete Playground

It’s the documentary that caused all the fuss at last year’s Melbourne International Film Festival. The one that resulted in a diplomatic scuffle, three Chinese directors withdrawing their films from the festival, and the hacking of the MIFF website to the tune of an estimated $50,000 in lost ticket sales.

Now it’s time for Sydney to see what all the fuss is about.

Andrew Urban is hosting a one-off Q&A screening with the film’s writer/director Jeff Daniels, presenting the story of the tenacious Rebiya Kadeer and her ongoing struggle against the Chinese government over the contested Xingjiang region — the ancestral land of the ethnic Muslim Uighur people. After six years in gaol and a subsequent six spent in exile in America, Kadeer is a passionate and complex leader who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and also made headlines during the July 2009 riots in Ürümqi.