Screening of Blue Island by Chan Tze-woon
Friday, March 3, 2023
12:00 AM (Pacific Time)
Please note that the film screening and Q&A talk with Dir. Chan Tze-woon will be available to view both online and in-person.
- RSVP Online
- View film screening on Vimeo, available for 24 hours (12:00am - 11:59 pm PST)
- View the post-screening Q&A on Zoom (9:00-10:00 pm PST)
- RSVP In-Person
- View the film screening and post-screening Q&A at James Bridges Theater, UCLA (7:00-10:00 pm PST)
"Hong Kong Lost or Found?" is a film series that features four extraordinary works of two documentary film makers – Evans Chan (陳耀成) and Chan Tze-woon (陳梓桓) -- who have chronicled Hong Kong’s two transitions (1997 and 2020) and major social protests in between. The four films are free and accessible to all online, each for a 24-hour period.
About the Movie
These are all stories of youth. A young man preferred to risk swimming across the raging sea towards a safe haven in order to avoid being caught up in the Cultural Revolution on the mainland. Another young man resisting colonialism was imprisoned for printing patriotic periodicals during the riots, and was long forgotten by the country after his release. A third youth went to Beijing to support students' demands for freedom, only to see their dreams and bodies crushed under the treads of tanks.
The beliefs and ideals held by each generation are eventually submerged by the deluge of history. How do these generations recall, confront, and narrate their irreversible fates? The film documents three real-life characters who engaged in rebellions when they were young. Through reconstructing these events, the film dramatizes their scarred memories and experiences by using four young people who participated in the 2019 Anti-extradition Law Amendment Movement in Hong Kong. These real protagonists are separated by time and history, yet their lives parallel and overlap, because they have similarly defiant backgrounds and find themselves the same chaotic predicaments.
Images flow between documentary and drama, blending archival materials, interviews and behind-the-scenes footage, weaving an expansive tapestry that encompasses these tumultuous eras...
How do the young people of this city envision their future today? What do they think about this seemingly unwinnable revolution?
This event is organized by Global Hong Kong Studies @ University of California. Read more about the film series.
Sponsor(s): Asia Pacific Center, Center for Chinese Studies