This explosive, revelatory look into China’s one-child policy peels away decades of propaganda and indoctrination through the lens of its people. Co-director Nanfu Wang takes us on a monumental odyssey across China, beginning in the rural village where she grew up. She investigates the songs, paintings, and graffiti that propagandized the one-child policy and are woven into every fabric of society, bleeding into the background like a scar that won’t heal. From there the film bursts outward, as Wang points her lens to the officials and midwives who executed the policy through forced abortions and sterilizations. On a path toward reconciling these painful stories with Wang’s own lived experience, the film starts digging, revealing countless ripple effects and illustrating the harm of Western cultural stereotypes of China. This unflinching dive into a nation’s past and present leaves us questioning everything. (SA)