From a Kafkaesque office for social media in Germany into South Sudan military headquarters, to conversations with an Iranian Ayatollah, Indian film censors and Chinese news editors. Norwegian filmmaker Håvard Fossum has traveled the world to understand what censorship is, allowing the censors themselves to state their case. Hearing the word censorship makes us cringe, but is it a misunderstood idea. With remarkable access to a secretive world, Fossum intimately follows the daily working lives of the censors, giving a rare insight into the ways information is controlled, from the Communist Party in Beijing to the corridors of power in Washington. If there’s one thing the censors have in common, it’s that they’re all convinced they’re working for a good cause, and that censorship is a bulwark against social chaos. It’s a paradoxical project with both comical and tragic consequences, but in these disruptive times, where censorship itself is taking on new forms, there’s reason to listen. At once laugh-out-loud funny, deeply shocking and thought-provoking, this timely and intelligent doc will stay with you long after you watch it.

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Documentary