How We Told an Immersive Story About a Community That Hails From One of the World’s Most Restricted Areas
Our latest immersive documentary, “Living in the Unknown,” highlights the fears and hopes of the Uighur diaspora struggling to keep in contact with relatives in Xinjiang, a province in western China known for its strict surveillance and secrecy.
Life in the province of Xinjiang, in the far western corner of China, is shrouded in secrecy. From facial recognition cameras at petrol stations to the drones hovering above the border, the high tech surveillance in the region is rampant. There are police checkpoints at every corner. A recent report by Human Rights Watch details the system adopted by the Chinese police using a mobile app to monitor and store data on 13 million Uighurs, and other Turkic Muslims, in Xinjiang.
Reporting on this issue is complicated within and outside of China. Journalists who travel to Xinjiang to report on the Uighur Muslim community tell stories of police following their every step. The Uighur community abroad say they feel they are being followed, even though they are living far away and out of immediate reach from the Chinese government. There are informants who claim they are sent by the Chinese government to infiltrate Uighur diaspora. Many Uighurs abroad also don’t want to talk to the media, fearing repercussions for their families back home in China. Those who choose to do it either hope that the spotlight will help their case, or simply feel they don’t have anything to lose because their relatives have already been imprisoned.
It’s almost as if an Orwellian dystopia — where your every move is tracked and your entire life is at the mercy of Big Brother — has suddenly become very real and life-threatening.
So, how do we tell an immersive story that has at its center, one of the world’s most restricted areas? How do we cover a topic as complex as the Uighur issue — one that involves a long history of tension, alleged human rights abuses, and claims from multiple parties — and turn that into a creative, visually striking documentary? How do we provide an intimate look into the lives of the people from there — Uighur Muslims — and how they’ve been impacted by China’s surveillance and secrecy?
This proved to be quite the task, but we did it. We published our virtual reality documentary, ‘Living in the Unknown,’ which uses a mix of personal stories, archival footage and graphics to showcase the plight of the Uighur people, both inside and outside of China.
Here’s how we did it:
1. WE PUT TOGETHER THE RIGHT CREW.
‘Living in the Unknown’ wasn’t our first go at covering the Uighur issue. After the news about mass detention in Xinjiang broke in August 2018, we published our first story documenting the issue from the perspective of a Uighur mother and daughter. In the rare 360º footage, Hatice Abudurexiti showed her life in Istanbul, Turkey, where she and her daughter were taking refuge after her husband was arrested in Egypt. In 2017, dozens of Uighur students were detained by the Egyptian police on Beijing’s request. At the time of filming, Hatice hadn’t heard from her husband in nearly two years. The video, filmed by freelancers Oscar Durand and Özge Sebzeci in October 2018 — and edited by Contrast in house — quickly gained attention online.
That’s when we decided to go beyond a 2-minute social video and attempt to capture the issue with a longer, more in-depth documentary. However, dealing with such a complicated and multi-layered issue — with human rights organizations and Uighur activists on one side and China on the other — we knew that there was an immense amount of research that needed to be done in order to tell this story in an accurate, nuanced and meaningful way. Because of the sensitivity of the topic, it was also essential to put together a production crew that was familiar with the region, the characters and players involved, who could be trusted to gather the footage we needed to do this story justice.
Simina Mistreanu, a China correspondent, joined ‘Living in the Unknown’ as a reporter and field producer. Having previously reported from Xinjiang herself, she brought her expertise on the Uighur issue to the project, which was an important and essential background for her reporting in Turkey.
“Xinjiang is one of the most pressing human rights crises in China’s recent history, and one that is difficult to wrap your head around,” she says.
Interestingly enough, according to Simina, the main challenge for journalists working on this issue is not the heavy policing.
“Visiting Xinjiang as a journalist is challenging, because state police follow your every step and prevent you from talking to people. But, perhaps an even greater challenge is getting readers and viewers to relate to and care about the fate of a group of people they have maybe heard nothing about, and whose situation is just as complex as it is urgent. It has been important for me to try to report on this issue from almost all possible angles, including the experiences of families living in Turkey without being able to communicate with their loved ones in Xinjiang.”
The crew also consisted of a Uighur fixer who knows the community in Istanbul very well. Abduweli Ayup is a writer and a teacher who fled China himself, after having spent time in detention in Xinjiang. Having Abduweli with the crew made it easier to get access to the stories, because the characters felt at ease and were willing to talk to him. Abduweli has also a lot of experience working with various international media, which was an important advantage, especially when working with a relatively uncommon medium such as 360º video.
Following our commitment to include as many voices from the community in the production and post production processes, we also looked for a Uighur musician to compose a score for the documentary. Translator and singer Rahima Mahmut, currently living in London, joined the project to offer her voice and tunes to wrap up the viewer in an authentic Uighur musical experience.
That leads us to our next point.
2. WE GOT PERSONAL (AGAIN).
Our first social video, featuring Hatice and her daughter, garnered a lot of attention online. As in all of our work, we chose to include a strong personal element in the video, as it always resonates with viewers. Hatice shared her worries and fears about her imprisoned husband, and about the life she was trying to build for her daugther in Istanbul. Through Hatice’s story, viewers were able to see, understand and were reminded of the very real effects of the alleged human rights abuses China is accused of. We wanted to continue on the same note in ‘Living in the Unknown,’ which is why the film features a follow-up with Hatice and includes more voices from the Uighur diaspora community.
Highlighting the sense of ‘family’, both in Istanbul and in China, was crucial in order for viewers to understand the plight of the Uighur people. Many Uighurs have managed to get out of Xinjiang in search of a place where they can freely practice their religion and foster their culture, but many do so with a heavy heart. This is because, in many cases, they’ve left the people and things they love most — what makes a place ‘home’ — behind.
For example, Habibullah, a 32-year-old Uighur businessman who has lived in Istanbul for nearly two years, shares that he hasn’t heard from his sister in nine months, while he walks us through his current life with his wife and four children. We gathered footage of the family eating, of his wife and children playing at a park, and of Habibullah at the store he owns. While walking us through his life in Istanbul, Habibullah shares his worries regarding his sister’s safety and of his longing to go back to his ‘motherland’.
We used the same approach to capture the personal story of Monawwer, an 18-year-old student. She and her sister have not heard from their parents since they arrived in Istanbul a year earlier. She talks about the friends she has made in Istanbul and of her plans for higher education. Like Habibullah, however, she expresses her longing for the day she can see her parents again.
We contrasted the characters’ current lives with their emotional recounts of what they’ve left behind, to accurately capture the Uighur (and general refugee) experience. This was our approach to getting viewers hooked and immersed in a topic that is as complex as the Uighur issue, as well as bring the human element back into the narrative (which has been dominated by dry, facts-based reports from human rights groups).
In addition, it was important to tell this story through virtual reality. This is because the medium gives the viewer an opportunity to see the homes of our characters, and to spend more time with them in their surroundings. This way, we are able to bring the viewer a bit closer to the people who feel they have been forgotten. Immersive journalism is very much about the location and setting, so it was important for us to document the city and the places that many Uighurs are now learning to call home.
“We hope that by bringing viewers into the homes of Uighur families in Turkey, we’ll be able to help create empathy and build a connection. Uighurs feel like their fate is of no concern to the rest of the world, that they are alone. We hope immersive journalism can help change that,” says Simina.
3. THEN CAME THE FACTS via MESSAGING INTERFACE
As always, we wanted to capture this issue in a nuanced and accurate way. This meant asking some important questions that forced us to consider how we could combine the personal stories of Uighurs (who’ve been directly impacted by the alleged human rights abuses) with important context:
- What does China have to say about the accusations? How do we represent China’s stance on the issue?
- How do we demonstrate the international conversation going on regarding this issue, in a way that’s visually interesting and fits into an immersive environment?
To tackle and answer all of these questions in ‘Living in the Unknown,’ we collected archival footage (and relevant soundbites) from past Al Jazeera news packages and various news agencies. But we didn’t want to just superimpose text, linear video and photos onto 360º footage, as that would be an overload of information, especially in immersive space. So, we decided to present the information in the form of a ‘messaging’ app. Taking into account the messaging applications that were most popular within the Uighur community, we created an ‘interface’ that we used to include all the information needed as ‘messages’ being ‘sent’ directly to the viewer.
This was not only a great way for us to present crucial contextual information to the viewer in a way that was captivating and worked within an immersive environment, but it also conveyed the painful situation Uighurs in diaspora find themselves in. Messaging apps are easily accessible and commonly used around the world, but are rather useless for Uighurs struggling to stay in touch with their families far away in China. Uighurs living abroad recall how their relatives simply delete their contact and stop messaging. This has to do with the fact that China perceives Uighurs in diaspora as potential sources of radicalization and, thus, closely monitors any communication. Thus, by using this visual style, we were able to present important contextual information in a way that worked well within an immersive environment AND highlighted the total radio silence many Uighurs receive from their loved ones after leaving Xinjiang.
Some examples:
To show China’s side: “We will not accept the politically-driven accusations from a few countries which are fraught with biases and are seriously far away from facts…” an excerpt from Le YuCheng’s speech in front of the U.N. Human Rights Council, November 2018 (VIDEO)
To include the findings of human rights groups: “We documented torture. We documented ill treatment.” Sophie Richardson, Human Rights Watch (PHOTO + AUDIO)
The world wants to know what’s happening in Xinjiang, but it remains one of the most restricted and tightly controlled areas. The secrecy and lack of verifiable information coming out of the region made the thought of publishing a virtual reality documentary about the Uighur issue quite daunting. However, we managed to bring the story to life by combining the personal accounts of the Uighur diaspora with archival footage and other contextual information. We also used unique graphics, to provide viewers with the perspectives of both the Chinese government and human rights groups in an inventive and creative way. These combined techniques were the best way to tell an immersive story that covers the long history of tension, alleged human rights abuses and claims from multiple parties, while also making the story very much about the lives of those who have been the most impacted by the strict surveillance and secrecy in Xinjiang: the Uighur people.
