The New Yorker: How “Reeducated” Was Made
“Reeducated,” a new virtual-reality documentary from The New Yorker, brings viewers inside a Xinjiang prison camp, reconstructed from the memories of three former detainees. To create the film, Orynbek Koksebek, Erbaqyt Otarbai, and Amanzhan Seituly, all ethnically Kazakh men and ex-prisoners of the camp who are now living outside China, shared testimony about the facility, describing in detail everything from their daily schedules and experiences of torture to the distance between beds. The artist Matt Huynh brought their recollections to life in stark, evocative pen-and-ink drawings, which were then assembled by a team of animators into a three-dimensional space that allows viewers to experience a detention cell, an indoctrination classroom, and other parts of the camp. On Friday, the film received the Special Jury Recognition for Immersive Journalism in the Virtual Cinema category at SXSW.
