Never Sorry about Brown '06

At Brown I was a news anchor and jazz DJ at WBRU, produced a show on BSR, and made a short documentary about campus activism with the amazing Julia Liu '06. So even though I didn't study Chinese, maybe it isn't so random that I moved to China after graduation and now I'm making the first feature-length documentary about China's (in)famous artist and activist, Ai Weiwei. The film's called AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY.

It all began with a trip to China in 2006 with Julia, during which I decided not to leave. After adventures that included Ari Savitzky, Jackie Chan and Jet Li (I'm serious) I met Ai Weiwei in 2008. First I made a short film about him, and then I started filming more of his daily life. Eventually I got a bigger camera, an interested funder, and one day Ai Weiwei started introducing me to others saying "That's Alison, she's making a documentary about me. She's been following me for a long time". That's when I knew I was doing it, for real.

Below is the latest trailer for my film, which should come out in Fall 2011. If you're reading this before June, here is the link to our Kickstarter page if you want to support the film.

Just this week the PBS show Frontline aired an 18-minute story I produced and narrated for them about Ai Weiwei. Here's the first part of the piece "Who's Afraid of Ai Weiwei?" (PBS has the full version on their site):

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

Can't wait to see everybody at reunion, especially from Hope College, Gabe's House, Slater Hall, the Hearty Semites intramural bball team, WBRU, "Not Your Classroom", Art House and everyone else I love!