Hong Kong Protest Films »The revolution of our time”And“ You You Stay Forever Young ”will premiere in March at the new film festival organized by artists and cultural workers who have moved to the UK
Ng Ka-lyn, producer and director of Hong Kong’s anti-utopian anthology Ten Years and documentary filmmaker and writer Wong Ching, co-curator of the Hong Kong Film Festival UK 2022, said the festival was more than just showing films that may no longer be shown. in his hometown due to political changes.
It is organized by the Hong Kong Umbrella Community, a British organization of which it is a co-founder Nathan Lowe, a former Hong Kong MP who now lives in exile in Britain. The first edition of the festival is funded by private donors, but the event organizers expected to raise funds from other sources for future publications.
Britain, the former colonial master of Hong Kong, has become a new home for tens of thousands of Hong Kong residents since the launch of the BNO visa scheme last year. The scheme offers a path to UK citizenship for holders of British national (overseas) passports that were only available to those born in Hong Kong before the city was transferred to China on 1 July 1997.
The presentation of 16 titles – including six documentaries, five dramas and five short films – in London, Manchester, Bristol and Edinburgh, they said, is aimed at promoting Hong Kong’s contemporary film culture in the UK.
“Overseas audiences have long associated Hong Kong cinema with Wong Kar-wai and Bruce Lee. After 2019, the focus on Hong Kong cinema among local and international audiences has also shifted to politics, ”Ng Variety said. “But there is a lot more to Hong Kong’s film culture, and we want to offer a new perspective.”
Kiwi Chow’s “Revolution of Our Time” (“Ten Years”, “Beyond a Dream”), a documentary about the protests in Hong Kong in 2019, raises the curtain on the first festival entitled “Gap and Revival – Fresh Views on the Breakthrough in Hong Kong”. whose era took place at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. The film, which also won last year’s Best Documentary Award, will debut in London on March 19 at the Genesis Cinema.
The youth drama “Forever Young” will close the London stage of the festival on March 27 amid protests co-directed by Rex Wren and Sam Lem. The opening and closing films of the festival may not be released in Hong Kong next Implementation of the National Security Act in 2020, which prohibits activities that are considered related to secession, subversion, terrorism and conspiracy with hostile foreign forces. Hong Kong authorities last year also tightened a film censorship law to effectively ban films that pose a “threat to national security”.
The festival also features: “Inside the Red Brick Wall,” a protest documentary that was canceled from Hong Kong last year after pro-Beijing politicians claimed the film could violate the NSL (but before the censorship law was tightened); as well as Malta Kaedingo’s “Black Bauhinia,” which documents the rise of localism in Hong Kong and the independence movement ahead of the 2019 protests.
Apart from political names, “DriftingThe award-winning directorial debut of Jun Li, dedicated to the tragedy of the homeless, and “Ballad on the Shore”, Ma Chi Khan’s 2017 documentary, which reflects the last memories of fishing songs in the city, is also a selection.
“Memories overwhelm, drinks to wash them”, winner of the Hong Kong Film Critics Association Award 2020, Simon Chung’s gay drama 2018 “I miss you when I see you”, “Gone with the Wind”, Faye Also shows Wang’s documentary about the homeless who spoke in 2018.
Also shown is a revamped 4K version of Frut Chan’s “Made in Hong Kong” and Alvin Tsang’s family documentary “Reunion” (2015).
Ng, a board member of the organization, acknowledged that some film distributors and rights holders were concerned when they were asked to cooperate with the new festival. According to him, the festival never intended to politicize the discussion through films.
“We want to find a way to tell the stories of Hong Kong in troubled times through movies. We are talking about preserving Hong Kong’s cultural identity, ”Wong said. The city’s once thriving film industry has recently been muted, and a significant portion of the staff is now working on mainland China’s projects.
The festival will take place from 19 to 27 March 2022 in London and from 31 March to 10 April in Manchester, Bristol and Edinburgh.