Activism]]> Kelvin Wu]]> Asia]]> Coexistence]]> Migration]]> Displacement]]> 17 Aug 2016, Wed 7:30pm - 10:00pm
19 Aug 2016, Fri 7:00pm - 10:00pm
20 Aug 2016, Sat 1:00pm - 4:00pm
The Single Screen, Block 43 Malan Road

Wednesday, 17 August, 7.30 – 10.00pm
Screening of exodus of nowhere, episode 1: the water is wide
Lee Wai Yi, Enoch Ng, and Kelvin Wu, Hong Kong 2002-13, 75mins. Selected and introduced by Ting Chun Chun (Hong Kong/Singapore), Assistant Professor, School of Humanities and Social Sciences (Chinese Division), NTU

the water is wide evolves around the intensifying conflicts between mainland Chinese migrants and local Hong Kong people in recent years. It tells the story of the very first controversy — the right of abode of Hong Kong citizens’ children who were born in Mainland China before the 1997 handover. The controversy ended in 1999 when the National People’s Congress in the People’s Republic of China reinterpreted the Hong Kong Basic Law to deprive these citizens of their right of abode in Hong Kong. Fourteen years after, we look back at this story and the right-of-abode fighters’ continuing struggle with this hardening border, in order to ask what defines us as humans, peoples, and communities.

Friday, 19 August, 7.00 – 10.00pm
Screening of exodus of nowhere, episode 2: gamble, Lee Wai Yi, Enoch Ng, and Kelvin Wu, Hong Kong 2013-14, 140mins. Selected and introduced by Ting Chun Chun.

One says, life is a gamble. Yet for the ones who are isolated and lacking in resources and information, every move is a gamble with their bare lives.

The grandfather who survived the embargo during the Korean war and the financial crisis of 1973; the sailor who witnessed the oil crisis and the Iran-Iraq war; people who fled Hong Kong to settle in England after the 1989 Tiananmen movement; the foreign domestic workers and Chinese farmers who travelled afar from their impoverished homes to cities where their contributions had never been recognised. Stories of seemingly unrelated individuals recount similar and connected experience with migration, ethnicity, borders, responsibility, and oppression in a globalised world. Hence we ask, what are the things that connect us as individuals with the world?

Saturday, 20 August, 1.00 – 4.00pm
Screening of exodus of nowhere, episode 3: rondo for the dis/placed
Lee Wai Yi, Enoch Ng, and Kelvin Wu, Hong Kong 2002-13, 210mins. Selected and introduced by Ting Chun Chun.

In a fragmented, non-linear style, exodus of nowhere: rondo for the dis/placed recounts a series of migration stories across Southeast Asia, mainland China, and Hong Kong. As these stories of border crossing highlight the manipulation of identity politics for colonial rule, nationalist consolidation, economic domination, etc., the film eloquently debunks the mainstream narratives of political history and definition of boundary. This critical stand subsequently enables the film to find a new way to tell the stories of the powerless and reveal the hurt suffered by communities who were pit against each other by the hands of power. The screening with be followed by a casual conversation between the audience and the filmmakers.

These screenings are organised as part of the public programme of Amar Kanwar: The Sovereign Forest.

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Lee Wai Yi]]> Enoch Ng]]> Kelvin Wu]]> Ting Chun Chun]]> Asia]]>