The Chinese version of the organ harvesting documentary, “Hard To Believe”, will be released online and on DVD on August 15 in Hong Kong, China, and North America. The release coincides with the international gathering of transplant professionals at the 2016 World Transplant Congress in Hong Kong, being held from August 18-23.
The “Hard To Believe” filmmakers interviewed attendees at the last World Transplant Congress in San Francisco in 2014, as well as investigators, researchers, advocates and prisoner of conscience survivors from labor camps in China. “Not enough has changed since the last congress,” says Kay Rubacek, a producer for “Hard To Believe”.
Kay Rubacek with her daughter and the award for Best Documentary for “Hard To Believe” at the Hoboken International Film Festival
“The medical community has yet to acknowledge that prisoners of conscience form the majority of China’s source of organs.” says Rubacek. “It is vital for China to come clean about the source of their organs.”
Since its release in 2015 on America’s PBS Television, “Hard To Believe” has won 11 film awards, screened in 12 countries in multiple languages, and is being used as an educational tool in universities.
Lance F. Howard, a Senior Lecturer of Geography at Clemson University said: “I have shown shocking documentaries about human rights abuses in my World Geography classes before, but what I liked about ‘Hard to Believe’ is that it addresses the shock itself, and the fact that it is so hard to believe that we don’t want to tell anyone about it. My students were riveted to their seats until the end.”
Students at Clemson University, USA, watching “Hard To Believe”.
Esma Paljevic, an assistant professor at Pace University, Lienhard School of Nursing in New York, watched the film at the Global Bioethics Initiative Summer School Programand said: “‘Hard to Believe’ showed us how it is not difficult for healthcare professionals to be involved in something that is unethical and not realize it until later.”
Ken Stone, a two-time Emmy award-winner, and director of “Hard To Believe”, had virtually no knowledge of organ harvesting in China or the Chinese spiritual practice Falun Gong, who is the primary target of Chinese authorities. But Stone soon realized he had stumbled on a gruesome murder mystery that hardly anyone was taking note of.
“The story I wanted to tell was why no one was paying attention,” says Stone. “It reminded me of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., writing about the civil rights era in the United States: ‘History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.' One of the lessons from ‘Hard to Believe’ is that so many good people – so many of us – haven’t just been silent, we haven’t even paid attention. I hope this film prompts a few more people to do so.”
“Hard To Believe” Chinese version will be available from August 15 on DVD and to watch online via the film’s website:www.HardToBelieveMovie.com/chinese.
“Hard To Believe” is also available in English in America and Canada on DVD and for online streaming via iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, and the film’s website www.HardToBelieveMovie.com.
Kay Rubacek, receiving the award for Best Documentary for “Hard To Believe” at the Hoboken International Film Festival