Major South Korean Theater Abruptly Cancels Human Rights Film Festival Bookings
The abrupt decision came from MEGABOX Dongdaemun, the official screening venue of SLIFF, one day before the festival's opening on May 30, affecting multiple films documenting the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP's) human rights abuses. Organizers said they were shocked, and filmmakers said they were outraged.
'This is the first time I've seen something like this happen in Korea,' said Heo Eun-doh, SLIFF's general director and chief curator. 'A theater unilaterally canceling international human rights films—there's no question this was due to external pressure.'
MEGABOX is one of Korea's largest theater chains, with more than 100 locations nationwide. According to the SLIFF organizers, they had provided all the materials to the Dongdaemun branch, had signed a contract, and had paid the full rental fee upon the approval that had been stamped by MEGABOX headquarters.
Heo told The Epoch Times that his team had been monitoring ticket sales and had found that everything suddenly vanished.
'When we called, they told us, 'We don't support festivals with political nature,'' he said.
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Ticket sales for the festival began just the night before, on May 28, and some showings—including the May 31 screening of '
'State Organs,' a 76-minute documentary produced by Peabody Award-winner Raymond Zhang, follows the perilous search of two families for their missing loved ones in China, according to the film's synopsis, revealing evidence of state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting, a practice unique to China that involves the killing of the organ donor.
Zhang spent
Zhang refuted the political allegations by the Megabox theater.
'This is not a political film—it addresses universal values such as humanity and human rights,' he said.
'I believe the sudden cancellation in Korea was driven by interference from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). When the film was screened in Taiwan, I received over a hundred threatening emails and messages and was targeted by pro-CCP cyberattacks. I didn't expect similar tactics to appear in South Korea.'
Threats of mass shootings, bomb detonations, and systematic hacking were
Other films affected by the last-minute cancellation include '
Despite the setback, Zhang emphasized his belief in South Korean society.
'I still believe Korea is a free and democratic country, and its citizens won't be swayed by this kind of pressure,' he said.
'Violation of Artistic and Expressive Freedom'
SLIFF is the only film festival in South Korea dedicated to global human rights issues, according to Heo. He said that he and his team had spent a whole year preparing for the film festival, and described the last-minute cancellation as a devastating blow to the festival and a serious violation of free expression, attributing the cancellation to outside political pressure.
'This was not an internal decision. This was a forced shutdown—clearly influenced by external forces. It's a serious violation of artistic and expressive freedom,' Heo said.
He said that what is happening now in South Korea is similar to what happened in Hong Kong in 2019, as depicted in 'Revolution of Our Times.' He said this documentary on Hong Kong's democracy movement serves as an example of why these films matter.
'No one has the right to strip away artistic or expressive freedom. And I believe the Korean public understands that. Think about it—a theater unilaterally labeling international human rights films as 'political' and pulling them while tickets are still on sale? There's no way this came from Koreans themselves,' he said.
Heo pledged to keep fighting.
'We will not be silenced. We will not back down. We will stand firm, and in the end, we believe justice will prevail,' he said.
'If we remain silent in the face of this kind of censorship, we're not just giving up on art—we're giving up on democracy itself. This cannot be brushed aside. We will make sure the truth is known throughout South Korea and call on people to stand with us. That is our unwavering position.'
The film festival organizers have managed to screen 'State Organs' for one listing in KBS Hall, Seoul, on May 30.
The documentary has screened in the United States, Japan, and Taiwan, and is
The Epoch Times reached out to the Megabox Dongdaemun branch, but the call was not answered.
An Jing contributed to this report.
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The real fix isn't giving up independence; it's demanding systems that support it: affordable childcare, stronger labour protections, better healthcare and more equitable parental leave. The fix is, in short, political policy – something these women seem hesitant to lead with, despite their attempt to influence it. Perry is comfortable navigating contradictions. She appears on anti-abortion podcasts, yet says she doesn't want to see abortion rights reversed in the UK. 'Pro-life people have tried to get me to endorse them and I have always refused to do that,' she says, while also citing the anti-abortion legal academic Erika Bachiochi as one of her key inspirations during our conversation. Perry says she doesn't position herself as a politician, but her goal seems to be to influence the dominant culture and women's individual trajectories. 'While I have a laundry list of things I'd like, I'm not a politician; I'm a writer and I write what I think is true. I'm not much of an activist these days, but I hope more women will change their behaviours.' She has recently adapted her book The Case Against The Sexual Revolution into a handbook aimed at teenage girls, in which she advises them to delete dating apps, withhold sex and avoid being alone with men. Aside from her recommendations to women about sex and relationships, which people can take or leave, Perry's views on other issues have been a lot less innocent. She has written, for instance, that the transgender activist movement is 'made up of a combination of fetishists and the mentally ill', and has expressed her opposition to women being in front-line policing roles. So, where does the so-called 'cultural commentary' end and the political manifesto begin? By making feminist arguments interspersed with ultra-conservative talking points and maintaining a presence in both fringe and established outlets, reactionary feminists can maintain plausible deniability when asked if their views could bolster policies that could undo fundamental rights. In the 2024 US election, 40% of women between the ages of 18 and 29 were pro-Trump, compared with just 33% in 2020. That's an upswing of 7%. And while bro podcasters such as Joe Rogan and other anti-woke YouTubers have been largely credited with boosting men's vote for Trump, similar influences on the female vote shouldn't be ignored. And neither should the growing support for Nigel Farage's far-right party, Reform UK, here. They secured more than 4m votes in the 2024 UK election – which equates to 14.3% of the total vote – and in May's local council elections, won 677 of around 1,600 seats contested. While it's true that young women are the least likely demographic to vote for Reform (and this surge of support has – sadly – largely come from Gen Z men), Dr Kay warns that we should not take this as a hard truth. 'The worry for me is that this new wave of anti-feminist women influencers and commentators will start to shape electoral politics in the same way we have seen the manosphere fuelling right-wing voting patterns,' she says. Conservative and anti-feminist women like to say that modern-day feminism has devalued motherhood and is forcing us into the rat race. They can make us forget how their anti-woke message gives credibility to efforts to roll back key rights, and why – beyond our individual desires and choices – we need to demand more for every woman. We need greater support for childcare and flexible work, investment in medical research to develop new forms of contraception and a better sexual culture that doesn't just keep us safe from violence, but guarantees our sexual freedom. These women's messages are rewarded by the algorithms of social media, which will amplify polarising, controversial and misinformative content to keep us engaged and scrolling. Whatever you think of their views, there's no doubt they have spread because of how divisive they are. And the impulse is to push back with equal force. But at a time when 'manosphere' influencers are thriving online, far-right parties are making electoral gains and reproductive rights remain threatened, we need to offer a response to these narratives without alienating the women who recognise themselves in them, creating further divide. In a world where we're often asked to choose sides and can get led down various online rabbit holes, we need to remember that agreeing with This new generation of conservative YouTubers and podcasters seem to know with certainty what's right for us, but feminism has always been about letting us live on our own terms and decide for ourselves what's best. It's about choice, not a mandate from one woman to another. As social media bombards us with shock reactions, viral content and 'controversial' takes, we can lose the ability to consider how we feel about these – and other – reactionary messages that come our way. The solution isn't simple (it rarely is), but to start, we need to learn to slow down, fact-check and consider who benefits from our frustration and attention. some critiques these influencers make doesn't mean that a person embraces all of their wider political views.
