A new documentary film revisits the golden age of kung fu stuntmen and action directors in Hong Kong during the 1960s-'80s, exploring their pain and struggles. The documentary is a tribute to kung fu stuntmen. “They risked their lives for stunts,” said kung fu choreographer Yuen Bin. In their heyday, these stuntmen and choreographers presented the best, most creative and most complicated kung fu fight sequences anywhere in the world, creating stunts that looked seemingly impossible.

Tracing the beginnings of Jet Tone Films, which was founded in 1991 by Wong Kar Wai for the production of Ashes of Time (1994), the film features never-before-seen materials, including deleted scenes, behind-the-scene footage, and selected narration by Wong Kar Wai.

In a quiet forest, a sign warns of radiation hazard. “Is this the past or the future?” muses the masked figure who appears like a kind of ghost in nuclear disaster areas. At a time when nuclear power may be re-emerging as an alternative to fossil fuels, this calmly observed and compelling tour takes us to places that may serve as a warning.

Throughout Hong Kong’s history, Hongkongers have fought for freedom and democracy but have yet to succeed. In 2019, a controversial extradition bill was introduced that would allow Hongkongers to be tried in mainland China. This decision spurred massive protests, riots, and resistance against heavy-handed Chinese rule over the City-State. Award-winning director Kiwi Chow documents the events to tell the story of the movement, with both a macro view of its historical context and footage and interviews from protestors on the front lines.

Behind the gas masks of Hong Kong’s democracy movement, the often very young activists are just as diverse as the youths of the rest of the world. But they share a demand for democracy and freedom. They have the will and the courage to fight – and they can see that things are going in the wrong direction in the small island city, which officially has autonomy under China but is now tightening its grip and demanding that ‘troublemakers’ be put away or silenced. Amid the violent protests, we meet a 21-year-old student, a teenage couple and a new father.

Using immersive camera work and a heart-pounding soundtrack, Faceless takes us to the frontline of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong to meet four young people who risk their lives and fly in the face of absolute power.

After the 2014 Umbrella Movement, Hong Kong Democrats divided into two groups with differing beliefs and protest methods. ‘Community March’ members, often labelled as leftards, focus on fearless community work and caring for minorities, despite not joining frontline protests. Senior journalists Lo King Wah and Kong King Chu highlight their dedication to community service and democratic ideals, showing how they persist in voicing concerns and promoting democracy despite political repression.

Blocks of white marble from a Greek quarry are shipped to China, where sculptors turn them into Hellenistic-style statues and columns. The leftover grit is processed into fridge magnets and other souvenirs, which are returned to Europe and sold to Chinese tourists.

Angela Su’s fictional artist Rosie Leavers is the last remaining person to upload her consciousness to a video game. Contemplating during a pandemic year which also saw people’s resistance movements in many parts of the world, the work pinpoints the uncanny affinities between gaming and warfare strategies. They have mutually informed the infrastructure of both worlds since time immemorial when diplomatic conflicts played out on the battlefield of the 64 squares of a chess board to flight simulation technologies which were adapted to shape gaming experiences as we know it now. When the conflict is between the state and its people, she speculates that gaming strategies empower civilians in resistance movements to counter imperialism through its own operative logic. But once we upload our consciousness, are we able to return to the sensibilities and political motivation that inspired the revolution to begin with?

During the pandemic, the filmmaker’s son found himself stuck at home for a very long time. Ying Liang watched him cut out a portrait of Abbas Kiarostami from a book, and create a face mask on the face of the Iranian filmmaker. Liang observes how his son builds a ‘world’ on his bed, makes a paper airplane, and flies various places with his new friend Abbas Kiarostami. After spending the whole day flying, he falls asleep on that same bed with the family’s kitten. In his dreams, he uses the ‘magic’ he has learned from an online magic course to remove the face mask. With The World of Mindfulness, Chinese filmmaker Liang – who is now living in Hong Kong – creates a marvellously simple piece about the world of childhood, adding a touch of playful cinephilia.

“History is not just a matter of date”, said Chris Patten in his last speech as British Governor of Hong Kong, shortly before the United Kingdom handed administration of the province back to China in 1997. In DECAMERON, Rita Hui Nga Shu combines this speech and other historical sources with fiction and contemporary images. Her gripping documentary takes a critical look, for example, at the question of what Hong Kong actually is at this particular moment in time.

A Life in Six Chapters is S. Louisa Wei’s latest documentary, devoted to the writer Xiao Jun. It can be seen as part of a series of works beginning with Storm under the Sun on the Hu Feng Affair, and includes documentaries on Wang Shiwei, the cultural critic who became one of the first intellectuals to be purged by Mao in the Yan’an period; and the writer Xiao Hong, who after a six-year common-law marriage to Xiao Jun eloped to Hong Kong, where she died a tragically early death.

In Hong Kong, echoes of resistance and turmoil are sensitively captured on 16mm in this poetic rumination of public spaces and everyday life in a metropolis in upheaval.

Celebrated Australian cinematographer Christopher Doyle (In the Mood for Love, Rabbit-Proof Fence) talks about his adventurous life and career in this frank and insightful documentary.

"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.

Lost Course chronicles a grassroots democratic movement in the southern Chinese village of Wukan. The villagers protest against the corrupt local officials before ousting them and organising elections of their own. However, after taking control of their destiny, the villagers find themselves beset by the same corruption and cynicism endemic. Following three main characters, Li reveals the complexities of their struggles, triumphs and setbacks from the inside.

A poetic, experimental portrait of four Hong Kong women in London working to digitise records of the handover agreement between the United Kingdom and China. Impressionistic and precise, personal and expansive, Cheung's elegant, eloquent work decodes history and how politics are enacted.

A poetic exploration of the camera's gaze and a family's relationship with the filmmaker's mother.

With the form of remote audio conversation for its main narrative, the essay film consists of four chapters, each of which has its own focus but is also interconnected with each other. Blending voice narratives in four languages, moving images and literary texts, the film is mainly made from home video collections created in the 1990s from both filmmakers’ families, with home videos shot in the 1960s by a Hong Kong family as interludes. The film not only unfolds how East Asian families created their own image with amateur filming devices but also tells stories of migration, travelling, growing and familial relationships.​

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.

Twelve-year-old scuba diver Ema sets out on a quest to find out why corals around the globe are dying, but are somehow more resilient in Hong Kong.

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.

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.

A father has been fighting for the rights of his daughter since she consumed tainted milk powder, yet fails to be understood. With a focus on the connection between father and daughter, the director returns to her own family, discussing love and growth. All of these efforts started with an experience dated back to her childhood.

"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.