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AI Xiaoming
[Mrs AI Xiaoming Prize winner Simone de Beauvoir, 2010. Prevented from traveling to Paris, Mrs. AI was send this text, read in his name Monday, January 11, 2010]
One evening in late December, a phone call informed me that I was winner of Simone de Beauvoir. This year, two winners are Chinese: Ms Guo Jianmei, a lawyer in Beijing, and myself.
When I received this call, I was in the waiting room of a station. I was too lightly dressed and I shuddered. I amid a crowd of passengers crowded baggage. trains were delayed by a cold front from the north.
How to believe such news?
Then I sent messages to my family and my friends. I also informed my university. Some have expressed their warm congratulations. Others erupted in joy. Others did not understand. I had to explain who was Simone de Beauvoir, her struggle for women's rights was not confined to Europe, and did not stop not today, one hundred years later.
That price is so important to me is attributed causes in me a strange feeling. I'm a little embarrassed to talk about it. In recent years, I have not had a clear understanding of my own situation. Because I make films, my lawyer friends and I have been confronted with violence of organized crime, but also that of the official police and its specialized services. Some tell me the day the net tightens, there will be time to notify (when I can not help thinking a scene from a novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: a knife in hand, a clan leader in troublesome kitchen a person a fish dish with marinated vegetables, this dish, decorated with coriander, then served at a formal banquet).
From this point of view, this award to me invaluable. In winter, the heart of the coldest season, that's a flower falls from the sky. It is an honor as it was not me not long ago. This consideration came from afar is as a blessing. As if the light FDI Simone de Beauvoir to suddenly over me. My family, my friends, myself, we know that , despite the paranoia of all clan leaders, the general indifference, caution and isolation, many people are paying attention to our action and our supporters . Many people who share our love of freedom, the freedom of swimming fish as he wishes, and love of human dignity, as immense as the sea agitated by the waves.
In fall 2008, I came to France in Paris to participate in the festival of Shadows independent Chinese cinema. I walked the streets of Paris with a friend and it took me a coffee. We drank rum. At the entrance lined with leaves and flowers, two young girls smiling , from the Middle East , let us take pictures as souvenirs. It's one of those cafes that line the charming corner of Paris. My friend told me it was in this café, Les Deux Magots, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre came to discuss and write.
The award ceremony takes place at the Deux Magots. Unfortunately, the police prevented me from renew my passport and I can not be present among you today. I fought with all my strength, but in vain, and I had to abandon all hope of being present. At the same time, in our wonderful countries, as major events occur. A writer is questioned for six articles that he has signed and is sentenced to spend 4,021 days in prison while Scheherazade only need tales of 1001 nights to escape his despot. Elsewhere in China, a woman entrepreneur, whose house was threatened with demolition, to prevent that her family would be beaten by the thugs that recruit sponsors, set herself on fire. The first day of this year, my collaborator for the production of documentaries was again arrested by the police. I longed to write this quietly acceptance speech, but I was constantly interrupted by the news. Before the avalanche of unexpected events, while the world is in crisis everywhere, I'm not an actor very modest.
Let me express my gratitude to all the members of this award and especially its Chair, Professor Julia Kristeva. The award celebrates "the freedom of women" bears the name of a thinker and a fighter who has immensely contributed to the emancipation of women and human beings. Today, you grant this award to a Chinese woman, single university, which recently devoted to independent documentary filmmaking. It is with great humility that I accept this flower from heaven.
The refrain of a song from the Chinese wartime anti-Japanese said: "In May, the flowers are blooming and just cover the blood of patriots. " That's what this flower from the capital of freedom tells us the freedom and emancipation are possible.
I thank Simone de Beauvoir
I thank the flower witty she sent me.
While in this new century, China is snow, a flower brightens our thorny path to honor.
On January 5, 2010
Translation Gilles GUIHEUX and XU Shuang
Copyright AI Xiaoming
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