Nestled between the towering skyscrapers of Hong Kong’s financial district and the high-tech innovation hubs of Shenzhen lies a quieter, lesser-known world – a village where craftsmen, farmers, and business owners sustain a close-knit community. Cha Guo 茶粿 (2024), a short documentary by directors Daphné Mandel and Guy Bertrand, takes us on a journey through the hidden rural landscape of mountains and vegetable fields, where generations have preserved their way of life against the backdrop of rapid urban change.

The film is named after a Chinese tea cake, traditionally shared at family gatherings and celebrations. With breathtaking cinematography and deeply personal narratives, the documentary shows how older and younger generations connect by sharing stories – as savory and heartwarming as Cha Guo itself. It offers a rare glimpse into a Hong Kong seldom seen – a place where resilience and heritage shape everyday life.

Join us for this special Talk at the Library, featuring an exclusive screening and a conversation with the filmmakers, Daphné Mandel and Guy Bertrand, live from Hong Kong, as they share their experience of capturing these images.

Program
18:20 – Doors open
18:30 – Film screening (Cantonese with English subtitles)
19:15 – Talk and Q&A with the filmmakers
20:00 – Event ends

Attendance is free for Asia Society Switzerland Members. Not yet a Member? You can easily purchase one by selecting the One-Year Membership during the registration process.

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 that garnered the LA Shorts Best Foreign Film award and the Cleveland International Film Festival Audience Choice award.

Daphné Mandel (French, born 1975) has been living and working in Hong Kong since 2008. She completed her degree in architecture and urban planning in Versailles (France) in 2000. Mandel explores the in-between spaces that fall neither into the rural nor the urban. They are the fringes, the transitional landscapes at the edges of Hong Kong. Her artwork 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. Her works are often infused with aesthetics of illusions, fantasies, and poetry.

Mandel’s works have been exhibited in shows organized by art institutions including 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), Small is Beautiful XXXIX (Flowers Gallery, London, 2021), Photofairs Shanghai (Pékin Fine Art, 2019), Shek-O Sublime (Gallery EXIT, Hong Kong, 2019), 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.

About Talk at the Library

Talk at the Library is a members-only series where we invite an expert to our office library, over lunch, for a conversation on specific niche topics on a variety of countries and regions of Asia. The program consists of a moderated discussion and subsequent audience Q&A. Participants have the opportunity interact with the experts, asking questions live or online. Online participation is open to the public. 

For this special edition, we are delighted to present Cha Guo 茶粿 as an in-person-only event, featuring an exclusive film screening followed by a conversation with the filmmakers, Daphné Mandel and Guy Bertrand, joining us live from Hong Kong.