Registration 6:15pm,
Screening 6:30pm,
Discussion 8:30pm

(To Liv(e), 1992, 102 min, Cantonese with English and Chinese subtitles; Raise the Umbrellas, 2015, 25 min, English and Cantonese with English subtitles)

The evening screening features two films directed by Evans Chan. The acclaimed directorial debut, To Liv(e) and his 25-min work-in-progress Raise the Umbrellas, a documentary about the Umbrella Movement. Named one of the “100 Greatest Hong Kong films” by Time Out, To Liv(e), according to The Hollywood Reporter, “was inspired by actress Liv Ullmann’s 1990 visit to Hong Kong, where she decried the forced deportation of Vietnamese refugees. This, coupled with the Tiananmen Square crackdown the year before, contributes to a dark cloud of apprehension over the British colony…With a painter's eye in capturing the bohemian fringe of the Hong Kong art scene, and the mature voice of a seasoned filmmaker, Evans Chan examines love, family, the fate of Hong Kong, and the culture clash between East and West with equal depth and assurance.” New York Times correspondent Didi Tatlow called To Liv(e) “thought-provoking and the perfect time to screen it again, after Occupy Central.” The screening will be followed by a discussion with professors Gina Marchetti, Dr. Staci Ford and Professor Michael Ingham, and the filmmaker himself.

 

Evans Chan, wrote British film critic Tony Rayns, “has made a singular contribution to Hong Kong cinema and at the same time a major contribution to the whole spectrum of contemporary film-making. His work achieves a seamless blend of fact and fiction to produce an innovative kind of essayistic cinema.” A playwright and filmmaker, Chan adapted his award-winning film Datong into a libretto for the lauded opera, Datong: The Chinese Utopia, presented by the 2015 Hong Kong Arts Festival. Chan’s films will be shown alongside Umbrella Art exhibitions at Birmingham Arts Centre (UK), Brown University and New York University in 2015 and 2016.

Dr. Staci Ford has lived in Hong Kong since 1993 and is a lecturer in the Department of History and the American Studies Program at the University of Hong Kong. She teaches and writes cultural history with a particular emphasis on the intersections between genders, national and cultural identity, generation, and history. She is the author of two books Troubling American Women: Gender And Nation In Hong Kong (2011) and Mabel Cheung Yuen-Ting's An Autumn's Tale (2008). She has taught and written about Evans Chans' films for several years, particularly his short film, Bauhinia.

Professor Mike Ingham teaches English Studies in the English Department at Lingnan University and is a founder member of English language theatre group, Theatre Action. His publications include work on film, theatre, Hong Kong literature in English, Shakespearean drama and Gower's multilingual poetry. He has recently collaborated with Ian Aitken on a major study, Hong Kong Documentary Film for Edinburgh University Press (2013), and has published a number of pieces related to the films of Evans Chan, including his chapter on the film Sorceress of the New Piano in Tony Williams's new study of Chan's work. His forthcoming monograph for Routledge will be entitled The Intermediality of Theatre and Cinema.

Gina Marchetti teaches in the Department of Comparative Literature, School of Humanities, at the University of Hong Kong. Her books include Romance and the "Yellow Peril": Race, Sex and Discursive Strategies in Hollywood Fiction (University of California, 1993), Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Infernal Affairs—The Trilogy (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2007), From Tian’anmen to Times Square: Transnational China and the Chinese Diaspora on Global Screens (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006), and The Chinese Diaspora on American Screens: Race, Sex, and Cinema (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2012).

Veteran Hong Kong politician Elsie Tu had appeared in To Liv(e) [1992]: