His hope, beyond winning an Oscar on Sunday, is that international viewers of Do Not Split put pressure on their local governments to censure China for its actions. It's leading to questions of censorship and self-censorship," he says. Hammer believes the new law has "created a lot of fear" on the island, as critics of Beijing find themselves in a grey zone, unsure "what is allowed and what is illegal.
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Last summer, the mainland government enacted a new security law - "Beijing's final answer to the protesters" says Hammer - giving themselves sweeping powers to crack down on anti-government activity in Hong Kong. "The government used the pandemic to shut down the protest." "Suddenly you could only have four people in a demonstration," Hammer remembers. Demonstrations, which had been thousands strong, were outlawed under new COVID-19 restrictions. When the coronavirus pandemic hit Hong Kong in late 2019 it had an immediate, and lasting, impact on the protest movement. The impact of COVID restrictions on Hong Kong's protest movement Hammer says he has been doing back-to-back interviews with media outlets worldwide since the "Oscar ban" and is glad the message of "Do Not Split" - that "freedom in Hong Kong is disappearing fast" - is getting out there. Our film has gotten more attention than we ever would have, and there is even more debate around the protesters and the suppression of democratic rights in Hong Kong." Hammer says Do Not Split hasn't been officially banned - "we haven't heard anything from a government official in China or Hong Kong" - but notes that if Beijing hoped that censoring the Oscars would smother debate, "it has had the reverse effect. Zhao has come under attack on social media in China for comments she made in an interview back in 2013, in which she said her childhood in mainland China was filled with "lies everywhere" - a quote that has been interpreted as a criticism of the government. In addition to Hammer's documentary, Beijing is thought to object to the attention given Chinese-born director Chloe Zhao, whose US drama Nomadland is the Oscar frontrunner for best picture. Critics saw government censorship at work. TVB called the decision a "purely commercial" one. Then Hong Kong television network TVB, which had carried the Academy Awards telecast for more than 50 years, said it will not broadcast this year's Oscars. After the half-hour film received an Oscar nomination, Beijing had reportedly told mainland media outlets to either boycott or downplay the film awards ceremony. Instead, Do Not Split - the title comes from a slogan adopted by protesters meant to encourage the movement to present a unified front - has become the center of the discussion. Why China is boycotting the Academy Awards ceremony "There was a lot of coverage of the demonstrations back then, all over the media we thought we would be a complement to that," Hammer explains. Anders Hammer premiered his film 'Do Not Split' at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020
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