As part of Democracy on Screen, the monthly documentary and conversation series by French in Motion, organized in partnership with NYU’s John Brademas Center, we are pleased to present a special screening of NIGHT IS NOT ETERNAL.

The screening will be followed by a conversation exploring the film’s themes and the broader issues surrounding human rights, freedom, and U.S.-Cuba relations.

About the film

For seven years, award-winning Chinese-American filmmaker Nanfu Wang follows Rosa María Payá, daughter of the five time Nobel Peace Prize nominated activist, Oswaldo Payá, in Rosa’s fight for democratic change in Cuba. Rosa’s narrative is interwoven with Wang’s poignant reflections on her Chinese upbringing and her observations of eroding democratic norms in the U.S., revealing unsettling similarities to the authoritarian system she left behind.

Nanfu Wang

Originally from a remote village in China, Nanfu Wang overcame poverty and a lack of access to formal education en route to earning three master's degrees from Shanghai University, Ohio University and New York University. She is now an award-winning filmmaker. Her feature documentary I Am Another You premiered at SXSW 2017 in the documentary feature competition. Her feature debut Hooligan Sparrow was shortlisted for the 2017 Academy Award® for best documentary feature. It has won over twenty awards internationally including a Cinema Eye Honor, a George Polk Award, and the Truer than Fiction Award at the Independent Spirit Awards. Nanfu Wang was honored by the IDA with the 2016 Emerging Filmmaker Award.

Rosa María Payá 
Rosa María Payá Acevedo is a Cuban democracy activist and human rights defender. In 2015, she founded the citizen initiative Cuba Decide, a movement in favor of changing the political and economic systems in Cuba towards democracy, through a plebiscite. She is the daughter of the late Oswaldo Payá, the recipient of the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize and two-time nominee of the Nobel Peace Prize, who was killed by the regime in 2012.