Beautiful Life

In late 2009, over twenty Hong Kong civic groups united as the "Anti-High-Speed Rail, Stop Funding" coalition, aiming to halt Legislative Council approval of the HKD 66.9 billion Express Rail Link amid deep social rifts. The "Post-80s Anti-High-Speed Rail Youth" group drew thousands of young people with their slogan “Defend Our Homeland, Protest with Joy,” leading to three funding suspensions that surprised the public. Media coverage was intense and innovative, featuring rare camera angles and lively online debate among journalists. This documentary explores how reporters shaped the movement, their emotional involvement, and the dynamic relationship between the media and activists during Hong Kong’s pivotal 2009–10 protests.

The duties of an art museum security guard include: 1. Execute the rules strictly. 2. Check the facility and make sure everything is in working order. 3. Ensure the art works are not tempered with. 4. Fill in incident reports and file them properly. Facing the four walls of a gallery, pompous art works and visitors who break the rules, an old security guard falls into a hypnotic trance at times. He writes “Everything in order” on every page of the incident report routinely like his colleague. One night, a sobbing policewoman comes to search for her missing Malinois. Is the world still in order?

A property management corporation, which outsources its security service, has recently changed its contracted service provider. Having discovered that the scheme involves nepotism, the supervisor of the corporation exposes the hidden truth, which provokes huge tumult.

Seven activists from Hong Kong joint the global fight against the G8 Summit in Hokkaido Japan 2008. Given the fact that global warming, labor and energy issues were discussed and covered by mainstream media, they tried to get their voice heard to the leaders at the Windsor Hotel in Toyako (The Toya Lake), but they experienced hospitality of Japanese police brutality from the city rallies to the protest in the mountains.

During his studies in Edinburgh in 2021, filmmaker Fredie Chan experienced a protest by the locals to fight for their housing rights, as developers are discovered to be converting empty lots and unused old buildings into new international students flats, rather than resolving severe housing shortage for the locals. From the perspective of a Hongkonger, who is no stranger to housing problems, the documentary follows a group of local grassroots housing advocates, attempting to investigate the crisis, connecting the dots between global and local. Screened with the director’s previous film Beautiful Life, about an Indonesian girl who left her homeland to work as a domestic helper for a financially unstable grassroot family in Hong Kong.

In such a difficult situation in Hong Kong agriculture, to local farmers, before expecting a good harvest, they have to first overcome the problems caused by agricultural policy implementation, land policy and urban development in Hong Kong. This film is about three middle-aged local organic farmers and their farming stories: A peasant leader, who faces political infiltration in organization, decides to quit and focuses on his farming; a rural woman who fights against North East New Territories development plan and taking care of her sick husband at the same time, decides to combine family life with her home farming; a sixty years old truck driver who decides to have a career change, trying to live a fearless and free life as a farmer.

Sangwoodgoon was founded in the Anti-High Speed Rail Movement and Tsoi Yuen Village Movement in 2009. In 2012, Sangwoodgoon tries cultivating rice for the second time. This film records the rice planting process in spring and Dragon Boat Festival. Not only did the director experience the unpredictable nature of weather, questions for his companion are raised at the same time: How is the life as a farmer in Hong Kong when there is shortage of land and labour? Apart from documenting the non-traditional rice cultivating techniques, the film also wants to discuss about the relationship between farmer and nature, and the changing state of mind of protestors all the way through.

Talking to two fishermen made me realize I have never looked at Hong Kong from their perspective. Urban Diary tries to look at Hong Kong and see our shoreline from the sea. We filmed the two fishermen in action, getting on their fishing boat, experiencing fishing and looking at the ongoing reclamation of the harbour with them.