艾未未のインスタグラム(aiww) - 10月18日 23時16分

On October 17 at 10:10pm, I was at the Newark airport waiting to board United Airlines flight 149 to go to São Paulo. In Brazil, I would be giving interviews and attending the São Paulo Film Festival opening premiere featuring Human Flow. At Gate C121, the ground crew checked my passport and visa, then claimed that my visa has expired and I could not board the plane.

We tried to explain to the airline staff that the visa is still valid, but they insisted it has expired and had to pull our luggages off the plane. Uncertain of the validity of the visa, we waited at the airport for over two hours for the luggage to be returned to us. Afterwards we returned to New York City arriving the hotel at 1am.

Over the following hours till this morning, we made numerous phone calls and wrote messages to our contacts in Brazil, our film distributor. the Brazilian embassy in Berlin and the Brazilian consulate in New York. All have confirmed that my visa is valid and I should have been allowed to board the plane. It was the airline's mistake to deny me from the flight.

Tonight I will try to fly to São Paulo once again with the same visa. I would like to be there at the film festival as soon as possible, and feel terribly sorry for missing the interviews and the opening premiere due to this incident with United Airlines.
@humanflowmovie #humanflow

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