life - How to kill your husband


Last night I joined a large crowd for a Chinese premiere of "High crimes in Shanghai", a new documentary by Sylvie Levey. The movie focuses on three female inmates in the Songjiang prison in Shanghai. It is a compelling document of the prison system in China, and I'm not going to summerize it, that would always be very inadequate. The way how Levey is able to show the emotions of the three inmates, in a dehumanized surrounding, is quite amazing.
It all plays in a model-prison in Shanghai, not really an average one. And we see how prisoners get awarded for their behavior, while we do not see the punisments. Cels to isolate prisoners were there, but the film crew was not even allowed to have a look at them. But still, it shows the system how it is meant to be, and that is as far as I know the first time for a foreign crew.
Apart from a small countries, the rest of the world has to for the French sponsor of the documentary to air it possibly in June, then it can be released to the rest of the world too.
One of the discussions in the after-session was about the large number of women being in prison for killing their husbands. While things do improved in terms of help that is available compared to ten, twenty years ago, many women see no other way out than after being mistreated, threathened than to kill, and they are being shot or get in the best case life.
"We have even books on how to kill a husband," told a Chinese - female - friend who also attended the viewing. Must be a bestseller, I suggested. "Not really," she said with a mean smile. "It is all common knowledge, we do not need those books."

Books on Chinese prisons