Ai Weiwei documentary gets middle-finger salute at Sundance When filmmaker Alison Klayman accepted a Sundance Film Festival award over the weekend for her documentary "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry," she asked everyone in the room to raise their middle fingers in salute to the Chinese artist whose online activism has repeatedly gotten him into trouble with Beijing authorities. Why middle fingers, you may ask? The impolite gesture is a reference to Ai's photographic series known as "Finger," in which he brandishes his middle digit in front of famous national monuments and structures around the world, including the White House, the Eiffel Tower and Beijing's Tiananmen Square. The middle finger has become a kind of artistic calling card for Ai -- a playfully rude symbol that encapsulates the artist's jovial and rebellious spirit.