Hard to Believe Screening @ UBC

You’re invited to a screening of Hard To Believe and a Q&A panel discussion.

RSVP below (to ensure we provide enough food).

Hard to Believe examines the issue of forced live organ harvesting from Chinese prisoners of conscience, and the response—or lack of it—around the world. Produced by Swoop Films, two-time Emmy Award-winning director/producer, Ken Stone, and Irene Silber.

• 6:00-6:30pm Sign in and light refreshments
• 6:30-7:30pm Introduction and film screening
• 7:30-8:00pm Film review and Q&A panel discussion
• 8:00-8:30pm Networking and light refreshments

Q&A PANEL

• Ethan Gutmann – 2017 Nobel Peace Prize nominee and award-winning China analyst and human-rights investigator (featured in the film)
• Kay Rubacek – Producer and production manager of Hard to Believe
• Dr. Patricia Rodney – RN, MSN, PhD, Associate Professor at UBC School of Nursing
• Cindy Song – BA, LLB, LLM, Director of Aware Legal Education Society

“This documentary is extremely important for those involved in organ donation and transplantation, human rights, healthcare, ethics and the law… The credentials of the interviewed experts is impeccable.” ~ Journal of Bioethical Inquiry

“An important, timely and deeply disturbing account of one of the great human rights abuses of our time.” ~ Dr. Arthur Caplan, PhD, Founding Director of the Division of Medical Ethics, NYU

“This film shows us the dark face of human rights abuses, of what can come to pass when individuals are reduced, literally, to the sum of their parts. The participation of medical practitioners in the harvesting of organs breaches all ethical codes, and is impossible to reconcile with the role of physicians to heal rather than harm.” ~ Wendy Rogers, Professor of Clinical Ethics, and Deputy Director of the Macquarie University Research Centre for Agency, Values and Ethics

Film Synopsis
IT’S HAPPENED BEFORE: Governments killing their own citizens for their political or spiritual beliefs. But it’s never happened like this.

Winner of 13 film awards, “Hard to Believe” is a serious investigation into one of the most horrifying medical crimes of our time: forced live organ harvesting from hundreds of thousands of prisoners of conscience in China, and the response—or lack of it—around the world.

From an author’s 7-year investigation to a doctor’s confession; the determination of the son of a Holocaust survivor, to the persistence of a culturally-challenged victim community, “Hard To Believe” explores the mystery of why so few people seem to be paying attention to a crime so horrific it goes beyond belief.

Find out how doctors became murderers and why we turned a blind eye.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JleT-ig6ijY
More info: http://www.hardtobelievemovie.com/

Speaker Biographies in Detail
Ethan Gutmann (featured in the film)
Ethan Gutmann, a nominee for the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize and an award-winning China analyst and human-rights investigator, is the author of the award winning book Losing the New China: A Story of American Commerce, Desire and Betrayal. He has written widely on China issues for publications such as the Wall Street Journal Asia, Investor’s Business Daily, Weekly Standard, National Review, and World Affairs Journal, and he has provided testimony and briefings to the United States Congress, the Central Intelligence Agency, the European Parliament, the International Society for Human Rights in Geneva, the United Nations, and the parliaments of Canada, Australia, Ireland, Scotland and the United Kingdom. A former foreign-policy analyst at the Brookings Institution, Gutmann has appeared on PBS, CNN, BBC, and CNBC. His book The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting, and China’s Secret Solution To Its Dissident Problem was released in 2015.

Ethan is one of three researchers who just released a ground breaking report An Update to Bloody Harvest and The Slaughter. Ethan will give personal insights regarding this new report, which meticulously examines the transplant programs of hundreds of hospitals in China, drawing on media reports, official propaganda, medical journals, hospital websites and a vast amount of deleted websites found in archives. http://ethan-gutmann.com/

Kay Rubacek
Formally trained in the visual arts, Kay was a producer and writer in the gaming industry for 10 years before transitioning into film. Her first long form documentary production, Hard To Believe (2015), on the killing of prisoners of conscience for their organs in China, is airing on PBS stations across America and was selected for the ReFrame International Film Festival. Kay has been an outspoken advocate for and writer on human rights in China since 2001 when she was arrested for protesting on Tiananmen Square in Beijing and experienced the inside of a Chinese prison.

Dr. Patricia (Paddy) Rodney
Dr. Patricia Rodney, RN, MSN, PhD, is an Associate Professor with the UBC School of Nursing, a Faculty Associate with the Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics at UBC, a Research Associate with Providence Health Care Ethics Services, and Past President of the Canadian Bioethics Society. Paddy has a long-standing interest in issues of justice related to health care delivery.

Cindy Song
Cindy received her BA and LLB from Peking University, and her LLM from UBC. She became a prosecutor in China at the age of 23. However, she, herself, was later persecuted by the state due to her spiritual beliefs. She is a survivor of China’s state-sanctioned organ transplantation abuse.

WHEN
Thursday, March 2, 2017 from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM (PST)

WHERE
Lev Bukhman Theatre Lounge, AMS Student Nest
6133 University Blvd, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1