438 Matches Found
Every three months, a Chinese single mother, Xue takes a 10-hour-journey from Hong Kong to her hometown in Fujian, China with one hand dragging her heavy luggage and another hand holding her child. She has to extend her visiting visa to stay with her family, which migrated to Hong Kong when she was 8. In 1980s, the Chinese local government would let the family migrate except one child, so they would send money back. The tragic starts from here.
Three passionate Hong Kongers strive to disrupt the textile and recycling industries by innovating sustainable solutions to change mindsets and transition towards a circular economy before the landfills overflow.
During 2020, when the pandemic policy loosened, a violinist went back to hometown in mainland China to meet his parents and his friends. A sudden accident happened, everything changed, and a ceremony is no longer a "ceremony".
Umbrella Revolution: History as Mirror Reflection" is a 100% crowd-sourced documentary using materials from 100+ content creators to tell the story of the 2015 Hong Kong 79-day mass protest occupy movement (coined by international media as Umbrella Revolution) as the people on the ground saw the massive street protest.
This essay film is about Hong Kong as a place, or rather as a series of places, each with their own series of histories. Mak is after public and private histories, and the ways they commingle, intertwine and sometimes even obliterate each other. Her materials are multiple: she takes what she calls “appropriated archival footage and propaganda films from the 60s and 70s done by the British Hong Kong Government," and cuts, loops, zooms, slows and manipulates them to make striking distortions. To these “official” materials, made strange through video manipulation, Mak adds black-and-white Super 8 video of her own, digitally altered to sometimes look battered and archival, highly worked into a beautifully ghostly, grainy, evanescently visible texture. Images are juxtaposed promiscuously in double and quadruple frames, often paired images of intangibly related material, elegantly matched to be thought provoking as well as to offer visual delight.
Documentary short film capturing a reflection of a grandmother headed towards the end of the autumn years of her life.
When Hong Kong’s basic freedoms come under attack, media tycoon Jimmy Lai finds himself in the crosshairs of the state and must choose between defending Hong Kong’s long-standing liberties, or his own freedom.
Fragmented coastal scenes scattered across the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area: a security guard on duty at a Shenzhen beach, a woman posing for bridal photos along the West Kowloon Waterfront Promenade, children playing in the shallows beneath a bridge, the transparent glass interior of the M+ Museum, the rooftop of Sky100, the upper reaches of the Pearl River, and the waterfront of Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong, among others. Most of these filming locations were chosen from lists of photogenic sites popular on Xiaohongshu (RedNotes), i.e. places that have become “internet-famous” through a single viral post, attracting waves of photographers and tourists. Yet the artist deliberately diverges from these original images, turning away from the sharply defined details and edges of these celebrated sites. Instead, the camera retreats into marginalized zones at the limits of visibility, areas suffused with blinding halos of light.
This portrait of a Chinese family centers on the paterfamilias, who at the age of 85 still works his land by hand every day, his wife, who feeds and slaughters the chickens, and one of their sons, who lives in an apartment in the city and spends his days keeping company with his television and a steady flow of alcohol.
Aloneness is not the same as being lonely. Lying beneath the white sheets, the 11 holds the tale of forbidden unconditional love in dreams and in reality. The lovers whisper words of love as conversations continue to flow and laughter fills the ward.
In August 2016, one year after graduation, Albert returned to New Asia College to end his life. Ching-yi and Raymond met because of Albert’s passing, and organized his funeral together with some other friends. Six years later, they occasionally get together to chat about this forever young, handsome, and stylish friend.
Tugging Diary documents a footbridge over a year between August 2019 to January 2021. Due to social unrest and the uncertainty of various immediate happenings, both the internet and physical spaces act as critical communication platforms of its own during this period. As such, information can be circulated in the community more widely and rapidly outside of the existing mainstream media. As time goes by, these materials are continuously altered, some were renewed, while the others were removed, covered with paint, or overlaid by other information.
The homeless are not without "homes," but they lack the rights to protect their most basic human dignity and are arbitrarily evicted. The protagonist, Granny Lai Yuen-King, was a rare elderly scavenger among them who possessed a beautiful soul but ultimately died without dignity on the streets. This short film was dedicated to all the homeless.
The salt deserts of the Argentine Andes are being disrupted by profound changes that impact the environment, entire communities, and individual lives. As corporations extract lithium from the soil, two young political leaders, activist Vanesa and miner Elbio, run for president in their respective indigenous communities. In Buenos Aires, teenager Milagros protests outside the parliament as it holds uncertain national elections.
The film portrays 13 female villagers and students engaged in anti-development movement in 2010 and 2011 to recount a beautiful story of transformation, solidarity, and courage.
An overview of Chiu Fu-sheng, a fundamental producer and promoter for Chinese cinema. He worked between China, Taiwan and Hong Kong producing the best films by authors of the caliber of Hou Hsiao-hsien and went through eras that are reflected in his work: the war in Vietnam, the Chiang Ching-kuo era of Taiwan, the reform and the opening up of mainland China, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the handover of Hong Kong.
"sub vid heap" is a visceral and compositional study on domination, shot a year after the birth of a first child. An exhausted ego and a needy id, the sensory and the lingual, desire and duty, horror and humility vie it out in a haunted hall. Captured at Headlands Center for the Arts, screams of a baby are muted out while the process of portraiture claims space for a body craving autonomy. Actions of pushing, vacuuming and rocking conjure the rickety bones of downtrodden ancestors, calling the laboring body from the periphery to the center, moving the rage through the body for joy to inhabit the space it vacates.
The Occupy Central movement called for civil disobedience in the middle of Hong Kong’s financial district, in pursuit of democratic elections. The movement attracted many sympathetic students and citizens, and became known around the world as the “Umbrella Revolution” in 2014. This film closely follows the action on the ground: debates within the movement, street speeches, the unofficial referendum which was held as part of the campaign, and the student-led protests at the Central Government Office. It examines the tumultuous thoughts and feelings of seven activists who were there at the heart of the struggle.
A year on from the 7.21 incident, the narrative of what happened that night has morphed from an attack by white-clad men on ordinary people into a violent confrontation between men in white T-shirts and men wearing black. Hong Kong Connection reviewed CCTV and online footage from the day to look for clues and track down those captured on film in a bid to understand the truth as they told it. One of the producers Choy Yuk Ling was later arrested by the Hong Kong Police Force for her involvement in this truth unveiling documentary.
Election is about the Legislative Council Election in 2004, focused on three geographical constituencies: Hong Kong Island, Kowloon East and the New Territories East. The film follows various activities, from the submission of candidacy, pledge ceremonies, interviews with candidates to lobbying, debate at forums, voting and vote counting, etc. The film reflects the problems Hong Kong faces on the road to democracy and different facets of Hong Kong politics.
"War of Perception" by Bo Choy meditates on Hong Kong life encompassing belief, family heritage and Western influence. A costumed spirit performs with mirrors, in addition to street musicians and dancing protestors. A sad, sombre tinge pervades their making of spectacle.
In the artist's first solo return to Bangkok, they navigate the unfamiliar within the familiar. Through technological fantasies of an alternate self left unexplored in Hong Kong, they interrogate artificial intelligence in search of answers. By observing and emulating local youth culture, they reflect on lifestyle, belief, and their evolving understanding of identity.
Breaking 60: Challenging the Impossible is a documentary about the Hong Kong Four Trails Ultra Challenge, a Fat Ass-style trail running event where there are no race fees, no prizes, no medals, no pats on the back for being super awesome. Just a bunch of slightly left field individuals trying to run all four of Hong Kong’s ultra trails ‐ totaling 298km ‐ non stop, unsupported and in less than 60 hours. Each year a small group of runners are hand selected and Breaking 60 explores the personal challenges facing 4 of them. Since its inception, no one has ever gone sub 60.
Follows the journey of a spirited Nepali village girl on her pursuit to being a world-recognized mountain runner. Growing up in a remote mountain village in Nepal, Mira always dreamed of being successful in sport despite all the challenges that she & other Nepali girls face. After running away from home, Mira joined the Maoist army until as a young adult, she traveled the long distance to Kathmandu to try her luck. Out of money, she was about to return home to her village, when by chance on a morning run, she meets another runner who tells her about a long running race in the local hills. She wins it and soon begins to realize her tough mountain village upbringing has prepared her perfectly for this sport.
Follows the story of a handicapped street musician, Maurice Chan, as he explains what life is like for him in Hong Kong. In the process we go on a journey back in time to the Walled City of Kowloon. Once dubbed the 'sleaziest' place in Hong Kong, it was an island of Chinese sovereignty within the British colony. As a result of a secret political compromise between the Chinese and British Governments the Walled City was destroyed in 1992. This decision resulted in the displacement of the Walled City's 40,000 residents. The documentary gives the story of modern day Hong Kong from a personal viewpoint and shows historical links to a place the authorities preferred to forget.
COPYSHOP accompanies Berlin-Köpenick rapper Romano on a journey of discovery to Hong Kong, where he recalls his time working in a copy shop in his home town. It’s all about megacities, stereotypes, creative spaces, rap music, Romano’s copy shop biography and the copy of the copy of the copy...
The Ghost Festival takes place during the seventh lunar month. The gates of hell are opened to free the hungry ghosts who wander the world seeking food. During this month, Chinese pay tribute to their ancestors and offer food to the deceased to appease them and ward off bad luck. In Hong Kong, besides staging ceremonies to honor the dead, many Taoist organizations also give away rice to the elderly and the poor. The rice distribution depicted in this film was one of the largest events, and attracted over eight thousand people. The event was scheduled to last from nine in the morning to six in the evening. In order to ensure a place in the line, most of the participants arrived before dawn.
Law Siufung is a professional bodybuilder, a passionate advocate for queer rights in Hong Kong, and a PhD candidate who has dedicated their life to challenging societal norms and binaries. This documentary follows Siufung's journey as they reflect on their experiences in Hong Kong and embark on a new chapter in the United States, continuing their fight to build a more inclusive and accepting society for all. As a genderfluid individual, poet, and intellectual with a deep interest in Buddhist philosophy, Siufung’s story is one of resilience and defiance. Director Jean-Luc, who has spent 15 years in Asia producing commercials and TV shows for major international clients, uses his expertise to explore the complexities of identity and the ongoing struggle for acceptance in this compelling and deeply personal narrative.
In a person’s life, what is most moving is often the indescribable feeling in one’s heart. Beyond has moved many people. More than a decade has passed, and people have changed, but fans still remember Beyond’s works. There is no gorgeous packaging or pretentious attitude, but every song can touch people’s hearts.
Li Bing is a Buddhist nun who has worked for years to set up schools for local children in ethnically-Tibetan regions. In September 2016, she helped set up the Songhe Mani Tent School and hired two teachers, Gan Ge and Lhamo. The local incarnate Buddhist Lama has problem with their behaviors. In March 2017, as the new semester starts, the villagers come up with all sorts of excuses to demand that Lhamo be removed as teacher at the school. As Lhamo is forced to leave, Li Bing decides to remove Gan Ge too, as well as all the tents that serve as the school’s dormitory.
A speculative fiction about the invented city of Chin Kong; which is the imagination of Hong Kong in its dystopic future through the lens of political pessimism.
Taking us from Hong Kong's 1997 handover from British rule into Chinese administrative control, all the way to 2019, when a controversial extradition bill is greeted with massive street protests, this urgent film beds in with Hong Kong's pro-democracy demonstrations, offering a frontline portrait of four young protesters through a year of struggle. We see their hopes for a freer life and feel their fears as the authorities crack down. Pulse-racing scenes bring the viewer to street level, where peaceful protest is met with fury and tear gas. Clear-eyed about the complications and contradictions that come with a movement that changed Hong Kong forever, Hong Kong: City on Fire is a brave document of troubled times.
Hyacinthine Scar condenses the undigested emotions in me while traveling from Hong Kong to my brother’s wedding in Guam. Presences and gazes of all sorts, to look and to be looked at, repetitive camera work of the hired videographers, the vow that is rehearsed over and over again by the priest, all the uncontrollable clickings of the shutter from all us (including myself), and the endless sightings of different sides of the fragmented Western Pacific. The many spots I visited appear as though they belong to passersby. They are as real as they are dreamy.
The Price of Justice is a documentary film that follows four women as they try to pursue cases against their former employers. Taken into kafkaesque circumstances, these workers spend their days in waiting rooms, long queues and tribunals in a frustrating attempt to get access to justice. This documentary is my latest collaboration with Rights Exposure for Hong Kong Federation of Domestic Workers and has the support of the International Labour Organisation.
Ngau Tau Kok Estate is one of the oldest and largest public housing projects in Hong Kong. Most of the residents are either elderly and live alone, or working class families. Since 2001, after the government announced its plan to redevelop the area, residents have been gradually relocated to new housing estates. Following two social workers who work with the residents as they deal with the relocation, the film offers is a glimpse of the lives of old people. It is a group portrait of our parents and grandparents.
This is a film about Choi Yuen Village, documenting villagers’ lives in the summer and autumn of 2009. Suddenly, weekly meetings, guided tours, protests, and ambiguous government consultations entered their routines. They had to recount their personal histories and the meaning of life. The common belief that protests were only about money began to loosen. The word "agriculture" reemerged for Hongkongers. The timeline depicted in the film leads up to the peak of the anti-high-speed rail protests around the Legislative Council. In the end, the railway was decided to build. In spring and summer 2010, villagers searched for land and negotiated with the government to rebuild their homes and lifestyle, valuing community, and coexistence with nature. What sustains their deep connection to land and life?
The motions and gestures of military riot police, slowed down while performed by dancers, are surprisingly beautiful. Menace and violence estranged from context and time looks eerily strange, and all too familiar. In this gallery piece, Isaac Chong Wai somehow anticipates, a year early, key images of the Hong Kong protests.
7 years after the Handover, 7 Hong Kong filmmakers expressed their love and concern about gay, lesbian and bi-sexual. Let’s talk about love and desire, as well as sex and gender through drama, documentary, experimental short and animation.
Sparked by an unexpected movie ticket, Mary began writing to a long-lost primary school pen pal. This visual diary documents a journey to rediscover the warmth of handwritten words, leading to a profound self-exploration.
Parco writes a plea letter for his younger brother Rico, arrested for his role in the 2019 Hong Kong protests. The process stirs memories of Parco’s own 2014 arrest and their emotional distance. Before Rico’s sentence, the brothers share a rare moment of connection and plan to document prison life. Parco moves abroad before Rico’s release. The family sells their home, preparing to emigrate. On a final trip to Japan, Rico briefly experiences freedom, while Parco is wrongly arrested. As the family prepares to leave Hong Kong, Parco reads his letter one last time, confronting questions of fear, freedom, and identity—as a Hongkonger and a brother.
documentary about teenager life in 1980's Hong Kong
A filmmaker daughter studying in a foreign country belatedly learns of her mother’s cancer. Her mother has hidden it from her, lest she worry, but the daughter feels upset. The mother has been a doctor for thirty years, and she has thought as much about death as about living well. As the hospital has been her playground, the daughter is familiar with the scene of death, but the thought of losing her mother scares her.
A film produced in collaboration with Beijing-based collaborator Yuan Yuan which interweaves 16mm film and DV video with textual intertitles and fragments of voice-over narration. Merging aspects of visionary cinema, landscape film and home movie, the film combines footage shot in Manhattan Chinatown, Hong Kong, and Beijing into an intimate reflection on the act of physical and spiritual passage between a series of pressurised and rapidly shifting temporalities governed by different myths of order.
A quiet study of an afternoon. In the soft light of Room 1914, the film captures the gentle rhythms of a family: the hum of a fan, the pouring of water, and the dignity of daily labor. A poetic observation of life's textures.
<(Welcome to) The Planet of Orchids> is a cinematic anthology exploring the fascinating lives of orchids and their intricate relationships with neighbouring species. In this film, orchids are portrayed as indigenous beings who have thrived despite humans' indiscriminate colonization of ecosystems. Orchids take centre stage as protagonists, unfolding their unique or ordinary narratives from a plant-centred viewpoint. As such, the diverse and multidimensional dynamics of the transhuman community, which all ecosystem members belong, are revealed, and human audiences finally encounter 'Planet Orchid'.
With the arrival of an outsider, a peasant woman in rural China begins to sense the repressive, patriarchal bindings of her fate. A fruit tree fights to bloom. The Funeral of Spring is a deeply symbolic, intimate and languidly pastoral exploration of a woman’s sense of self in an environment devoid of female autonomy.
Mosuo, located in South-West China, is the only Matrilineal society in China. The first record of Mosuo culture dates back more than two thousand years. Today, this tribe still retains their unique culture, in which people live with their mothers' families and never marry. Concepts such as 'father', 'husband' and 'wife' have no meaning in Mosuo culture. Men and women may sleep together at night, but during the day they return to their own families. Mosuo culture is one in which men and women live harmoniously, and where there is no difference in status between the genders. Director Chou Wah Shan is a former associate professor at Hong Kong University, whose area of interest is gender and sexuality. He spent more than a year with the Mosuo people, and the result is an intimate portrait of this fascinating tribe.
Hong Kong's massive and unprecedented public protests and demonstrations in early July 2003 are documented in July. The film shows individual and mass reactions to the proposed national security legislation. It preserves the speeches, songs, chants, posters, and banners, as well as the atmosphere, for those who were there, and introduces them to those who were not. As such, July is a record of events that could not occur anywhere else in China.
When Ariel was in elementary school, she often lied in her mother's arms and listened to her recounting memories about Ariel. In 2024, at the age of 26, Ariel invited her mother to share her experiences about her pregnancy, but she declined. So Ariel interviewed her close friend and her mother instead. If Everyone is just an observer of memories, what is the meaning of retelling them once again? Are children and their mother bonded by blood, by relationship, or by an invisible gap within the streams of memories?
Beatrice records her experiences of gender confirmation surgery, and meditates on what it means to be a woman in this honest and very entertaining autobiographical documentary.
Throughout the recent months of protests against the extradition law amendment bill, film crews have been following and filming various officers who were playing key roles in different Police operations, in order to record on film the adversities they faced when executing their duties as well as their emotional journeys along the way. In the documentary, these officers working in different posts and different levels in the Force also provide moving personal accounts of what they and their families have been through during these challenging times. Filming of the documentary started when a riot started in Admiralty on the evening of August 31, 2019, and concluded on on December 24, 2019. Over a span of four months, the most dangerous , divisive and chaotic period in Hong Kong was captured.
Invisible Women follows the lives of three ethnic Indian women in Hong Kong. In the film, Cheung explores gender inequalities and looks at the lives of ethnic minorities in Hong Kong.
Young people are protesting on the streets of Hong Kong in order to bring about change. Air soaked with tear gas, the dark uniforms and loud commands of the police officers in the colourful umbrella sea of the protesters. In the midst of the action, the film documents a brand new protest movement.
Frank Kehl illustrates the vibrancy of the Chiu Chau Ghost Festival in urban Hong Kong, as the city comes alive with vibrant rituals and community events at a time when ghosts and spirits are free to wander the earth.
Protests in Hong Kong started in June 2019, and it changed the lives of many Hongkongers. This documentary tries to capture the protests and provide an account of the events that happened in the year of 2019.
A Shell Film Unit short observing Hong Kong’s “boat people”—families living and working on the harbor—framed as a day-to-day study of a floating community and its relationship to the city.
Nestled between the skyscrapers of Hong Kong, housing some of high finance’s most creative minds, and the gleaming glass and steel boxes of Shenzhen, China’s Silicon Valley where the future is being built, lies a hidden world no less exceptional. In this lost country backwater of mountains and vegetable fields, factories still manufacture soy sauce in century old clay pots; Kenny hand makes concrete spacers that hold up some of the world’s longest suspension bridges. Cha Guo 茶粿 shines light on the lives of the villagers, craftsmen, farmers and business owners who make up this local village’s close-knit community. The people’s philosophy and signature are their resilience and their dedication. They embody “Made in Hong Kong” over generations. Cha Guo 茶粿 celebrates the heroes of Hong Kong and the fabric of what makes it and its people synonymous with warmth and the ubiquitous “can do” attitude.