Changing minds one screen at at time: Leon Lee on the freedom to be a documentary filmmaker

When Leon Lee decided to move from China to Canada, he planned on attending the University of British Columbia — to complete an undergraduate degree in commerce and psychology.

"I've never imagined I would dedicate my time in filmmaking when my wife and I decided to move to Canada," he said.

Today Lee is an award-winning documentarian who has committed himself to telling stories about human rights issues in China — taking full advantage of his Canadian right to freedom of expression.

"I really cherish the freedom to make these kind of films in Canada," Lee said.

Lee's career in filmmaking happened kind of by accident. In 2006 he found himself reading a Chinese newspaper, and one article in particular caught his attention. It spoke of allegations of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in northeastern China. 

"My first reaction was complete disbelief," he said. "But then I thought, what if it's true? So I started looking into it."

Eight years later Lee released his first documentary: Human Harvest.

Human Harvest follows Nobel Peace Prize nominees David Matas and David Kilgour on their investigation into allegations of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience. The pair eventually uncover a large scale operation in which human organs — kidneys, corneas, hearts — are sold to transplant tourists from other countries.

People in the documentary allege that many of the organs are being 'harvested' from living people. And in many cases, the source of those organs is prisoners of conscience — mainly Falun Gong practitioners, but also Tibetans, Uighurs, and house church members. Lee says this practice began in the early 2000s and the number of victims could be in the hundreds of thousands.

Human Harvest won the Peabody Award in 2014 and Lee says that win opened the door for the film to be screened in more than 25 countries — in parliaments and congresses around the world.

"Partly because of the film we've also seen legislation passed in different countries banning their citizens from going to China for an organ transplant," he said.

"So we're raising awareness and changing people's mind one screen at a time. But the crime is still going on, which means every one of us has to do more."

In making his first documentary and seeing the Chinese state media's response, Lee realized it was likely not safe for him to return to his home country. Last year when his father was living his final days, Lee was not able to return to China to see his father one last time.

"That was heartbreaking. I never second guessed my decision to make the film, but to be honest, those period of time was really very difficult for me," he said.

When asked to reflect on what being a Canadian means to him personally, Lee talks about the freedom of expression he enjoys and how he can make films without fearing for the safety of his family.

"Whenever I travel around the world, passing through customs or border controls, taking out the Canadian passport carries a certain confidence that I am allowed to do this work freely," he said.

Lee continues to make films today. He is currently working on a feature length documentary about the notorious Masanjia labour camp in China. Beginning with a distress letter that landed in the hands of an Oregon woman when she bought a Styrofoam tombstone as a Halloween decoration. Lee's film traces the letter back to the man who wrote it, an engineer and Falun Gong practitioner who recounts his story of imprisonment and eventual escape from China.

To hear more from Leon Lee on his filmmaking and what it means to be Canadian, click the 'listen' button above.