RUNDOWN:
6:45 pm: Registration
7:00 pm: Opening remarks
7:05 pm: Screening
7:45 pm: Fireside Chat
8:00 pm: Closing remarks
8:05 pm: End

ASHK member price: HKD60
Non-member price: HKD80

Asia Society Hong Hong Center is proud to present Cha Guo 茶粿, a short documentary celebrating the hidden world of a Hong Kong rural village. Just like the eponymous homemade Chinese tea cake that’s traditionally shared at family gatherings and celebrations, directors Daphné Mandel and Guy Bertrand’s Cha Guo 茶粿 embodies the many narratives that connect older generations to the younger through the sharing of something savory and heart-warming.

About CHA GUO茶粿  (The film will be in Cantonese with English subtitles)

Nestled between the skyscrapers of Hong Kong, housing some of high finance’s most creative minds, and the gleaming glass and steel boxes of Shenzhen, China’s Silicon Valley where the future is being built, lies a hidden world no less exceptional.

In this lost country backwater of mountains and vegetable fields, factories still manufacture soy sauce in century old clay pots; Kanny hand makes concrete spacers that hold up some of the world’s longest suspension bridges.

Cha Guo 茶粿 shines light on the lives of the villagers, craftsmen, farmers and business owners who make up this local village’s close-knit community. The people’s philosophy and signature are their resilience and their dedication. They embody “Made in Hong Kong” over generations.

Cha Guo 茶粿 celebrates the heroes of Hong Kong and the fabric of what makes it and its people synonymous with warmth and the ubiquitous “can do” attitude.

The Directors, Daphné Mandel and Guy Bertrand, set out not only to document this village life and heritage but also to capture its distinctly Hong Kong spirit.

“No stories are better told than by the protagonists’ own voices”.
Daphné Mandel and Guy Bertrand

Guy Bertrand (Canadian, born 1965) is a Hong Kong-based photographer and filmmaker. His studio, Guy Bertrand Productions, has been creating work for Hong Kong, Asian and international clients for over 20 years, often with a keen focus on people and their environment. Clients include the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, General Electric, Architectural Digest, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Vacheron Constantin, UBS, The Marriott Group and Swire Properties.

Bertrand lensed One Small Visit (2022), a narrative short film which garnered the LA Shorts Best Foreign Film award and the Cleveland International Film Festival Audience Choice award.

Daphné Mandel (French, born 1975) is a Hong Kong-based artist. She completed her degree in architecture and landscape architecture in Versailles (France) in 2000.

Mandel explores the in-between spaces, the transitional landscapes at the edges of Hong Kong. Her artworks incorporates contemporary digital support and tactile traditional techniques, like painting and collage. This conceptually echoes Hong Kong’s urban aesthetic: one that is a juxtaposition of old and new, heritage and contemporary, derelict and polished.

Mandel's latest body of work is currently exhibited in a solo show, Their Memories, at Gallery EXIT, Hong Kong. Her works have been previously exhibited in Taipei Dangdai (Gallery EXIT, 2024), Art Basel Hong Kong (Gallery EXIT 2022, 2023 and 2024), ART021 (Gallery EXIT 2023, Shanghai), Hong Kong Time Rift (Gallery EXIT, Hong Kong, 2022), Hong Kong Dimensions (Blue Lotus Gallery, Hong Kong, 2018) and Hong Kong Vanitas (Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences, 2017).

Mandel co-founded the Paris based landscape architecture and urban planning firm Gilot & Mandel Paysage. Together with her partner, she was awarded the "Best Young Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture Professionals" by the French Ministry of Culture in 2006.

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The views and opinions expressed are those of the speakers and participants and, unless expressly stated to the contrary, do not reflect the opinion, position or official policy of Asia Society Hong Kong, its members, or its committees. Asia Society Hong Kong does not endorse or approve and assumes no responsibility for the content of the information presented.