Portuguese premier of All Static & Noise
The Portugal premiere of the award-winning film All Static & Noise, presented with the support of Safeguard Defenders, took place on 8 October 2025 at Cinema City Alvalade in Lisbon, Portugal. A trailer for the film is available here.
With all seats sold out, the screening was exceptionally well attended by a multinational and intergenerational, from students to retirees, audience.
The film, presented with both Portuguese and English subtitles, documents the plight of Uyghur people in Xinjiang as well as the Chinese government’s transnational repression of Uyghurs abroad. It follows individual stories that link mass detentions and persecution in the homeland with continued harassment in exile, showing how survivors escape, process trauma, preserve culture, and build solidarity.
Mihrigul Mosa and Masude Ayup, family members of the film’s main protagonist Abduweli Ayup, attended the screening and following debate. Their direct testimony on disappeared and deceased relatives, the risks of retaliation they continue to face outside of China, and the personal cost of speaking out as their loved ones remain under the Chinese government’s control in China brought an especially immediate and human dimension to the evening.
The panel also featured Safeguard Defenders’ Laura Harth, who offered expert perspectives on transnational repression and policy responses at EU and US levels.
The Q&A ran well over time, despite the packed cinema and hot weather, as audience engagement remained intense, producing discussions about policy, Chinese influence in Europe and Portugal, forced labour and brand accountability, and practical avenues for local civic engagement.
Four film students of Chinese origin from Universidade Lusófona were in attendance and the panel discussion got into the motivations and challenges of filming under strict surveillance, and how a film like All Static & Noise can reach audiences inside China or those otherwise living under strict censorship.
Last but not least, discussions also delved into what people in Portugal can do, leading to in-depth debate about how to engage with local politicians about the issue, as well as which brands to avoid and how to shop more consciously so that we are not complicit.
One participant described the screening as “a powerful tribute that moved them through authentic testimony from the protagonists and a fruitful panel discussion that explored how people in Portugal can engage with the issue and shop more consciously to avoid complicity with forced labour.”
Jewher, a Uyghur teen from China with little English, lands in the U.S. after she is violently separated from her father at the Beijing airport as he is detained. Abduweli, a linguist and poet, imprisoned and tortured for teaching the Uyghur language to 6-year-olds, makes his way to Istanbul upon his release. Testimony and action from survivors of China’s network of “re-education camps" and their families, in Turkey, Kazakhstan, Europe, and the United States, infuse All Static & Noise with an urgency that exposes the mass brutality of state-sponsored oppression in Western China. Together, these voices highlight the moral dilemma between risking the safety of families back home by speaking out and the necessity of exposing atrocities in the hope that global awareness will bring change. With each voice, we are brought closer to one of the most egregious human rights disasters of our moment. All Static & Noise honors those willing to speak out and poses difficult questions that are imperative in our interconnected global economy of the 21st century.
Director David Novack and Producer Janice Englehart bring together collaborators from around the world in a film, born of tragedy and infused with an inspired sense of hope, that reminds us that in the darkest of times, the human spirit shines brightest in the company of others.
To learn more, including dates for future screenings, see the website.
