Filmed over 18 months, Lessons in Dissent is a kaleidoscopic, visceral experience charting rise a new generation of Hong Kong democracy activists. Dedicated to stopping the introduction of National Education, a showdown with the government seems inevitable for 15 year old schoolboy Joshua Wong. Meanwhile classmate Ma Jai fights political oppression on the streets and in the courts. Catapulting the viewer on to the streets of Hong Kong and into the heart of the action. The viewer is confronted with the oppressive heat, the stifling humidity and air thick with dissent.
Matthew Torne moved from Beijing to Hong Kong in 2003 amid the chaos of the SARS outbreak and the turmoil of the Article 23 controversy. He immediately fell in love with the Hong Kong and has been studying its politics ever since. In 2010 he completed a Masters degree at Oxford University on Hong Kong’s post-1997 democratic development. Before making LESSONS IN DISSENT, Matthew worked as an Associate Producer on ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE, a Sundance film festival winning documentary, about the Khmer Rouge. LESSONS IN DISSENT was three years in the making and premiered at the 2014 Hong Kong International Film Festival.
This event is cosponsored with the UCLA Richard C. Rudolph East Asian Library