Sincere Pictures Announces Chicago Premiere of UNBROKEN: The Untold Story of Shen Yun
Chicago, Sept. 15, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sincere Pictures announced today that UNBROKEN: The Untold Story of Shen Yun will have its Chicago premiere on Monday, September 21, 2026, at the Claudia Cassidy Theater in the Chicago Cultural Center. The red-carpet screening is presented in partnership with the Chicago nonprofit that has invited Shen Yun Performing Arts to perform in the region for the past two decades, and is followed by a panel discussion and audience question-and-answer session with Shen Yun artists.
UNBROKEN: The Untold Story of Shen Yun movie poster. (Sincere Pictures)
The screening marks the close of Shen Yun's twentieth anniversary season and comes ahead of the company's return to the Chicago region in March and April 2027.
"We are thrilled to host the UNBROKEN premiere in our city," said Ms. Yi Liu, Spokesperson for the Chicago Shen Yun presenting organization. "For twenty years we have brought joy and traditional Chinese culture to our local community through hosting Shen Yun performances. Now this documentary tells the story behind the posters, the billboards, and the stage that audiences have never seen before."
About the film
Directed by Fiona Young and produced by Sincere Pictures, UNBROKEN is the first feature documentary made about Shen Yun Performing Arts, the New York-based classical Chinese dance and music company founded in 2006. Young obtained exclusive access to performers during training and on international tour, following an American family of Shen Yun artists across several continents.
The 82-minute film has two threads. One follows the artists themselves: the training, the touring schedule, and what performers describe as the reason they do it. The other examines the smear campaigns, threats, and interference the performers have faced as the company's international profile has grown.
Following its New York premiere at AMC Lincoln Square 13 in March, screenings in Los Angeles, and a presentation to members of Congress at the Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, D.C., UNBROKEN arrives in Chicago having been released in fourteen languages with more than one hundred theatrical screenings scheduled across five countries. The film recorded more than one million streams during a two-month free release on NTD Television, the studio's parent network, and on the Gan Jing World streaming platform earlier in 2026.
A Chicago story inside the film
Among the artists attending the premiere is Rachel Chen, a violist with the Shen Yun Orchestra who was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan and raised in the Chicago area. Chen had been studying violin since she was six when her family took her to see Shen Yun in Chicago. She was around nine years old.
"As a second generation Chinese-American, growing up in a mostly Caucasian suburban Chicago, I was actually embarrassed by my culture growing up," Chen says in the film. "I was so focused on being as Western and as American as I could be."
Seeing her own heritage presented on a major stage changed that. She was, in her words, "really intrigued." She went on to train at Fei Tian Academy of the Arts and joined the Shen Yun Orchestra, an ensemble that permanently pairs traditional Chinese instruments with Western classical ones. Chen holds a Bachelor of Music, magna cum laude, and a Master of Music in viola performance, won the Gold Medal at the 2023 Fei Tian Music Competition, and was the soloist on the Shen Yun Symphony Orchestra's recording of Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme.
"I first watched Shen Yun in a Chicago theater when I was nine years old," said Chen. "I never imagined I'd be coming back to this city now in the orchestra and with a film about it. It's a little surreal."
What the documentary examines
The film addresses a pattern that researchers describe as transnational repression, in which a government seeks to influence or silence people living outside its borders by working through the institutions of the host country rather than around them, through courts, regulators, media, and the venues and sponsors that make live performance possible.
Incidents reviewed in the documentary include a bomb threat that forced the evacuation of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. during a 2025 performance, an emailed threat written in Chinese warning of an attack if Shen Yun performed in Atlanta, and a series of bomb threats against performances in Taiwan that Taiwanese authorities reported tracing to an area in mainland China. The film presents documentation, interviews, and witness testimony, and attributes the pattern to the Chinese Communist Party.
The documentary does not report an incident in Chicago.
Chen was among the performers who spoke at a press conference captured in the film. "People go as far as endangering the well-being of our community, our families, and even our audience members," she said. "It is egregious."
At a question-and-answer session following the film's Los Angeles screening, Chen described what that has meant in her own family. Her father has not seen his brother in nearly fifty years. Her parents were unable to return to China when her grandparents died. "They weren't able to see them one last time," she said.
"What surprised us most was how complex and coordinated the pressure appeared to be," said Steve Lance, Investigator and Executive Producer of the documentary. "Rather than speculate, the documentary carefully lays out the facts and lets viewers see the pattern unfold."
"We felt strongly that this story belongs to the public," Lance said. "When art, freedom, and truth are being challenged, the most important thing you can do is make sure people can see the full picture."
Event details
Female dancers will wear original gowns designed by the Shen Yun artistic team. The panel and audience Q&A following the screening will be moderated by Lance.
Press access
Credentials for red-carpet arrivals are available by request. Email hello [at] sincerepictures.com with the subject line Credentials request for Red Carpet Arrivals, and include name, outlet, type of coverage, and the number and positions of crew. Space is limited.
Media tickets for the screening are available by request. Email hello [at] sincerepictures.com with the subject line Media ticket request to attend screening, and include name, plus one's name, outlet, and type of coverage.
A private screener is available to press on request for review and interview consideration.
Rachel Chen is available for interview by phone or Zoom in advance of the event and in person on September 21. Steve Lance is available before and after the event. Additional Shen Yun artists are available on September 21.
Film details
PR assets, including stills, posters, bios, headshots, and social assets, are available here: https://unbrokenshenyunmovie.com/presskit/ Rights granted for usage in coverage of UNBROKEN: The Untold Story of Shen Yun. © 2026 Sincere Pictures.
About Sincere Pictures
Sincere Pictures is a New York-based production company specializing in theatrical films, feature documentaries, and investigative storytelling. The studio is a division of NTD Television. Its current release is UNBROKEN: The Untold Story of Shen Yun.
Chicago-native, Rachel Chen, violist with Shen Yun Performing Arts on the red carpet at AMC Lincoln 13 for the NYC Premiere of UNBROKEN. (Sincere Pictures)
Press Inquiries
KBR, Film Press Contact
hello [at] sincerepictures.com
https://sincerepictures.com
A video accompanying this announcement is available here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=RdIObq2127M