Report Launch & Panel Discussion: Made in Hollywood, Censored by Beijing

During this digital report launch, PEN America and our panelists will discuss the pressures filmmakers confront and the choices they make in order to have their films be shown in China. 

Watch a video of the discussion. 

China is the world’s second largest film market and is a vital market for many American films. China’s government also has content restrictions and a state review process for films to be exhibited there. How do American film producers cope with those hurdles? Is Chinese censorship shaping what gets made and distributed, even outside of China? 

PEN America, an organization long dedicated to supporting freedom of expression, examines these questions in its new report Made in Hollywood, Censored by Beijing: The US Film Industry and Chinese Government Influence. This report is the latest of PEN America’s set of reports on Chinese governmental constraints on freedom of expression. One of those reports, on social media censorship, was discussed at USC in 2018. In this report, PEN America concludes that self-censorship concerning China is increasingly the new normal for Hollywood professionals, with significant consequences for artistic expression and for the filmmaking profession.

During this digital report launch, PEN America and our panelists will discuss the pressures filmmakers confront and the choices they make in order to have their films be shown in China. How do these pressures and choices compare to the many filmmakers make in the process of producing any film? How can filmmakers, studios, and other professionals navigate these pressures, and how can Hollywood better safeguard its creative independence?

Click here to read the full report.

For the webinar, the following speakers have been confirmed:

• Rebecca Lu Davis, Variety
• Aynne Kokas, University of Virginia
• Stanley Rosen, University of Southern California
• James Tager, PEN America
• Moderated by Clayton Dube, USC U.S.-China Institute