Lau Ho-ming

Life after university may be just dandy for people with passion and drive, but what happens if you are aimless, dreamless and hopeless? With no goals or ambition in life, a fresh graduate believes that she is an oddball destined for mediocrity. Her perfect solution is to be a slacker and to work part-time at a 12-dollar store. Unfortunately, the mundane life and wacky colleagues just add to her melancholy. The array of eccentric characters at the 12-dollar store speaks volumes on how the new generation perceives their less-than-rosy future.

It was the time when thousands of families left Hong Kong to look for a ‘better future’. After almost 20 years of separation, here comes the reunion dinner for a father and his daughter. The awkward distance between the two make them seem like strangers, but deep in their hearts hide their missing for each other. Memories intertwined with the present, both of them know that what really matters is your beloved ones are all well.

A phone call takes two young men a trip down the memory lane. Two boys and one girl, a classic teenage love triangle. Being best friends, Chung has always been the humble guardian angel for the young couple Yao and Shan. “My virginity will only be dedicated to the one I love” is the motto of Chung. The three remains close friends when they grow up, until the death of Shan breaks the harmonious relationship among them.

What could possibly turn a shy, quiet nerd into a voyeur? A long, lazy summer coupled with endless boredom? Sometimes through his binoculars and other times loitering on campus, a secondary student seeks to get an early taste of what university life has in store for him, dropping in on lectures, stalking the object of his gaze and lurking within her personal spaces. Feeding on a voyeuristic and borderline intrusive look into the lives of others, the voyeur remains at distance an idle walker and casual observer of a time and place charged with passion of a political (and sexual) nature, until his path crosses with hers and the two finally converge…

Hong Kong figure skater Wing-yee travels to Toronto alone for advanced training, aspiring to compete on the international stage. Despite the warm welcome and encouragement she receives there, very soon Win-yee faces setbacks and realises she is falling behind her peers. It is the friendship and support of warm-hearted Christy that eventually helps Wing-yee through her initial confusion and self-doubt, and she gradually develops a fondness for this beautiful roommate. Filmed between wintry Canada and mild Hong Kong, the short offers a poetic tale of two cities, about young passion, loss, and loneliness.

This is the first referendum held in Hong Kong and probably the last. Some people want to grasp the chance to directly participate in the democratic process. They try in various ways to push for greater democracy in society so that the people can become emancipated.

Set in Hong Kong, Eya is a shy teen who takes writing as a way to escape alienation, bullying and loneliness. On the school fun day Eya remains silent in the interview, but she is not the only one who finds life is too hard to bear. Everything is changed that morning.

An imaginative scientific movie offers room of reflection. In a futuristic world, everything sticks to “rules”. Operators monitor same computers and do routine work as they are told to; nothing more, nothing less. On the other end, an imprisoned young man repeatedly kills himself in a single cell. This man turns to be a “bug” which might endanger the whole “system”. One day, the suicide programme is activated again, and operator Alpha is called to take care of it. Things lost control all of a sudden and Alpha is seized. Infected and reprogrammed, is life all about endless trials and errors?

Four farmer-cum-robbers live together in a dilapidated house with a withered field. They discover a human finger inside a newly-harvested tomato one day. The gang leader decides to freeze it in the hope of selling it for a good price. Someone tells a story about a finger in a pub, so implausible that the listeners can hardly believe it. There are no fingers inside the other tomatoes and the gang remains poor. Tensions mount as the gang leader suspects a young member of hiding the secret of growing the finger-yielding tomato for his own benefit, leading to a big fight. The young man renounces his life of crime, but pays a hefty price…...

Picture this scenario: Your car hits a small girl. She is lying on the ground, bleeding but still breathing.There are two options: in the event of bodily injuries resulting in disability, you will be liable to pay out compensation to cover a lifetime of medical, unemployment and care expenses. Fatalities, in ironic contrast, can be settled under the table for a small lump sum. What do you choose? With a heavy foot on the accelerator, an old man listens to his favourite tune filling the air of his car, about to make a spin of no return. In dire situations, primal instincts kick in and you must do what you must to survive. When the law fails, there is no other alternative but to take justice in your own hands.

There are people and places that we used to hold dear in our hearts and gradually became sediments of buried memories. When Charlotte encounters a suitcase at the second hand shop she works at, her emotions are unearthed and bring her back to the days of innocence with Chan. Charlotte did believe that Chan, just like the neighbourhood in bygone times, would remain constant. Yet all old things are helplessly abandoned and crushed beneath the wheel of time. At the same time, Ling is depressed and lonely because of Chan's death. Sending Chan's things away to purge her negative emotions and to set herself free from the past, a treasured relationship reveals itself like ripples of emotions.

They are frozen in place, stagnating without any direction. Around them, things change rapidly.

Hong Kong, twenty years later. The city is a perpetual construction site where the wheel of development must turn to build more shopping malls and higher residential towers. Enter members of the all-girl pop sensation, Heartbeat 48, an ever-expanding army of eco-warriors who are tasked with checking the heartbeats of centuries-old trees and villages and losing no time to pronounce their deaths. When Doy, an internet nerd and one of the few surviving village natives, is transported from the past into the fanciful realm of cute tutu outfits dresses, toy stethoscopes and hugging farewell routines – all staged for the benefit of the camera – he gets trapped a nightmare he can’t wake up from.

When Chan is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he decides to end his own life, but his grandson unexpectedly brings him an abandoned old dog. The encounter cannot change their destinies but allow them to accept changes that inevitably happen.

The film is based on the Founder of Causeway Bay Books - LAM Wing-kee’s experience after he was temporarily released back to Hong Kong after 8 months of detention in Mainland China. LAM was demanded by the authorities to retrieve his computer in the bookstore in Hong Kong, alongside with the information of his customers. Only when he found out that his colleague handed over to him the wrong computer, should he start to think about possibilities besides submitting to authorities from Mainland China. The film re-enacts the events happened in the two days he was allowed to return to Hong Kong and explores LAM’s decision to defy, and refuse to leave his homeland.

Fishermen couple Ah Shing and Mei-wah, having lived from boat to shore, stayed together for most of their lives. After their son grew up, they have different visions towards the rest of their days. Ah Shing insists on fishing amid the decline of the local fishing industry. Mei-wah works as a factory worker and wishes for a more stable life. Even when there are subtle and profound changes in their relationships due to the different views, their affections for each other never stopped and they still support each other. This story is based on the real-life experience of the director's parents, and they play their own character in the film.

In our daydreams, we always dream about who we can be and what we can do. Chak is always living between his dream state – where he is admired and can get any girl he wants – and the reality – where he is constantly teased by his sexually frustrated, foul-mouthed friends. One day, Chak's dream becomes reality when he finds the acceptance of a girl he likes, but cruel reality eventually stops him once more. Instead of running away, Chak must face the real world head-on this time around.