10 Finished Movies That Disappeared Without A Trace

Director Zhang Yimou has had his ups and downs with the Chinese authorities and government censorship. He went from Raise The Red Lantern being banned in his home country for its perceived government critique to his wuxia trilogy (Hero, House Of Flying Daggers and Curse Of The Golden Flower) being sufficiently praised for their patriotism that he landed the prestige job directing the Beijing Olympic opening ceremony.

Recently he's been back on the government's bad side as his last movie was abruptly withdrawn from competing for the Golden Bear at the 2019 Berlin Film Festival and hasn't been seen since. (Managing to father seven childen during the era in which China insisted on a One Child Policy hasn't exactly put Zhang in the government's good books either).

One Second is set during China's Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. It is the story of an escaped prisoner and an orphan girl who has a piece of newsreel that contains the one second of footage he most wants to see.

While the movie was officially withdrawn from the festival for unspecified "technical reasons", it is widely suspected that it had not been cleared to be shown by Chinese film censors.

Censorship has become stricter in China since the entertainment industry fell directly under control of the Communist Party's Propaganda Department in 2018 and, while the government officially disavows the actions of the Cultural Revolution, films criticising failed past Communist Party policies are not likely to be well received.

One Second may yet find some form of international release, as Raise The Red Lantern did, once the current global crisis abates. But for the time being it seems to have been buried.