…That was one of the biggest challenges, and truly the darkest and scariest time of the whole project. When he was detained, I knew the stakes were raised immensely. Suddenly I was at the helm of a film about someone who was missing, and we all feared a prolonged detention or more serious political charge like “incitement to subversion of state power,” which had recently landed several high-profile activists with multi-year jail terms [including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo]. Fortunately, his release allowed us to finish the film without feeling like we were in full-out crisis mode, and we could continue to work hard to tell a delicate and complex story…

Read more: http://world.time.com/2013/08/09/qa-alison-klayman-director-of-the-first-full-length-film-on-chinese-artist-ai-weiwei/#ixzz2bcabOiAV