Human Harvest (film)

Production

The film is supported by the Canada Media Fund’s Diverse Languages Program, which supports productions on Canadian diversity. The program funds projects in languages other than English, French, or Canadian Aboriginal languages. Human Harvest was produced originally in Mandarin.

In addition to the work by the filmmaker Leon Lee, two Canadian film companies contributed to the production of the film: Principal of Flying Cloud Productions in Vancouver, and Toronto-based Mark Media.

Comments by Peabody Awards judges

According to Peabody Awards judges:

With powerful testimonials about the intricacies of the trade and the human cost, including interviews with Chinese doctors who confide they’ve been coerced into removing organs from live political prisoners, this is a harrowing exposé of a fiendish system of forced organ donor transplants.

Peabody Awards winners must receive all unanimous support from the 17 members of the Peabody Board of Jurors.

News

On April 7, 2015, Dateline of SBS Australia broadcast the film and urged the Australian Government to do something to help stop illegal organ trade in China. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the investigators including David Matas and his colleagues are "pushing for the perpetrators to stand before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity".

In 2015 the Communist Party of China said it would stop harvesting the organs of executed prisoners, an announcement about which the filmmaker Lee is skeptical.

Film companies

Two Canadian film companies, which worked on the documentary, will continue to work on other projects, including an in-depth investigation on the controversies around the Confucius Institutes.

Awards