In concentration camps, SS officers occasionally forced prisoners to watch films depicting the "success" of the Reich or, paradoxically, documentaries about typhus prevention. More directly, after liberation in 1945, Allied forces implemented "forced viewing" as denazification: German civilians and POWs were compelled to watch footage from liberated camps (e.g., Bergen-Belsen). This was not torture but atrocity cinema —a moral pedagogy designed to shatter denial and impose collective responsibility.
Reports from human rights organizations (e.g., Radio Free Asia, 2020) describe that in vocational training centers in Xinjiang, Uyghur Muslims have been forced to watch state-produced propaganda films for hours daily. These films depict model citizens renouncing religious practices and praising the Chinese Communist Party. The purpose is not information but attrition : boredom, repetition, and visual coercion aimed at reshaping belief systems. forced cinama