Total Trust is a documentary examining how surveillance has become an ambient feature of modern life, with over 500 million CCTV cameras, widespread facial recognition, social credit systems to score citizens’ behaviour, and big data to track loyalty and dissent. The film draws from the 2015 “709 Crackdown” on human rights lawyers, during which hundreds were detained. It situates itself within this broader architecture of control, showing how technological efficiency merged with political authority can produce an all-encompassing system of monitoring and oversight.
Directed by Jialing Zhang, who has previously co-directed One Child Nation, shortlisted for the 92nd Academy Awards, the film captures the ‘digital prison’ through covert footage, remote collaboration with on-the-ground contributors, and intimate access to three women’s lives. It follows Zijuan Chen as she seeks the release of her detained husband, lawyer Weipang; independent reporter Sophia Xueqin Huang, later arrested for reporting on the #MeToo movement and Hong Kong; and lawyer Quanzhang Wang and his wife Wenzu Li, a human rights lawyer confined to and harassed within their own home. Beyond individual cases, the film covers national programs such as the social credit system and the grid-based social management, as well as the use of health-tracking apps to restrict movement during the pandemic.
Total Trust received strong acclaim, winning the prestigious Grimme-Preis and an award at DOC NYC, America’s largest documentary film festival. With covert cinematography delivering raw, immersive realism, the film captures the hidden cameras recording daily life, families denied access to trials, and the psychological toll of perpetual monitoring, all without resorting to sensationalism.