Total Trust

The first major film about the Chinese surveillance state is a disturbing tale of technology, (self-)censorship and abuse of power in the 21st century. Two families fight for justice from within the digital prison.

Knowledge is power, and in China the state now knows more about the population than people know about themselves. Surveillance never has just one face, but is a fine-meshed mix of facial recognition, big data analysis and a points system where you can gain and lose points based on your behavior – a system almost worthy of a dystopian parody, if it wasn’t already a reality. Amidst this spider web of monitoring, the protagonists each fight a battle for justice. Chen’s husband is a human rights activist lawyer who has been imprisoned since 2020 for his legal work. Ever since, her life has been monitored around the clock. We also meet one of the only independent journalists who has had the courage to investigate the shocking developments in the world’s largest country. ‘Total Trust’ is the first major film that intimately portrays courageous people living in China’s increasingly monitored society. An eye-opening and deeply disturbing tale of technology, abuse of power and (self-)censorship, which the COVID pandemic only caused to accelerate at rocket speed.