ABSTRACT
From 1949 to the early 1990s, the Chinese film industry followed a planned economy model inspired by the Soviet Union, with the government allocating production funding and assigning film duties. The continued rigorous state control over distribution has led film lovers to create alternative circuits for documentaries. This chapter proposes a case study of one such grassroots initiative: PureMovies. The current status increasingly pushes PureMovies to reinforce self-censorship in order to survive. As a consequence, controversial documentaries are only screened to a selected audience, which makes it more difficult to attract new spectators. A 'red line' separates ideologically acceptable, government-sanctioned programmes and activities from censored ones. In November 2016, Congress passed the China Film Industry Promotion Law and China Network Security Law. Under this new law, the grey area around the red line is rapidly shrinking, and PureMovies risks crossing it every minute.
