Private View: Joshua Serafin

Kevin, a young theatre director from Hong Kong, is searching for ideas for his next play with his team, hoping to get funding for an overseas production. Frank, a middle-aged hairdresser in Berlin, is performing his daily routine. Coincidences bring them together, though their friendship is dictated by the parameters of the smartphone. Kevin decides to adapt the stories of the Berlin Wall to the stage, as old memories of living in East Berlin come flooding back to Frank. Shadows, in their literal and metaphorical sense, become the third wheel which silently alters their lives and turns into a story that transcends the boundaries of reason. Through this experimental work, director Terence LI sheds light on the inner space-time of the queer and the displaced.

A time and space that get mixed up, A brother and a sister, One who loves starting fire, Whereas the other loves extinguishing it, An unusual relationship.

Reenacting the suicide episode of the last Ming emperor, Chong-zhen from the classic Cantonese Opera Floral Princess, this experimental short film blending Cantonese Opera and modern dance elements reveals the journey of the defeated emperor accompanied by his faithful eunuch, Wang Sing-yan, on their way to the summit of Coal Hill to end their lives. Apart from inviting new perspectives towards their ambiguous queer overtones, it also explores the crossroads of life and death, authority and obedience, love and sacrifice, power and duty, that befall under the traditional patriarchy.

A young woman from a poor village in China, Xia Jia, arrives in Hong Kong to be a surrogate mother for a wealthy Chinese couple, living with them so they can supervise her pregnancy. It is an isolating experience, made harder by the harsh treatment of the wife towards Xia Jia, driven by bitterness and jealousy.

Two girls fantasize about making a declaration to the world. Youth is overrated. Depression, cynicism, rebellion. Poetic, and beautiful. How caricatured. Like how everything sounds better in French, even if it’s merely Google Translated. So we are here, to destroy the camouflage. Back to our reckless but satisfied souls and bodies. Ephwaipi, a homophone of ‘FYP’ (Final Year Project) is the debut short of Kitty Yeung and Candice Ng. The film, which also acted as their graduate thesis film, is the manifesto of two teenage girls about gender, romance and labour exploitation. Together, they seek to declare freedom from their teachers, lovers, bosses, and the most notorious villain of all — social norms.