Screenings: Hong Kong Film Series. Selected and introduced by Yung Ma, Curator, Contemporary and Prospective Creation Department, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France

Untitled (Festival), Liu Chuang, China, 2011, 5 min
Untitled (Festival) is set in an urban context, documenting a journey of an invidividual through a city filled with rubble and debris. It begins with the individual picking up a sheet of paper, lighting it up on fire and then throwing it to the ground. The act becomes repetitive, a commentary to the normalcy of accepting the conditions imposed on them without protest.

Autumn Moon, Clara Law, Hong Kong, 1992, 108 min
Weary of work, Tokio comes to Hong Kong looking for good food. He meets a 15 year-old girl called Wai. Her parents are in Canada dealing with immigration matters, as well as buying a house and sending her brother off to university. Wai is left behind in Hong Kong with her 80 year-old grandmother and her cat. Tokio finds himself more interested in the grandmother’s cooking. Wai, on the other hand is secretly in love with a boy in her school but is reluctant to show her passion, for fear that she is unable to handle the situation when she has to emigrate.

After Reality, Zhou Tao, China, 2013, 14 min
After Reality was filmed mostly in Guangzhou, China and in some parts of Paris, France, in abandoned urban or rural surroundings. By creating alternating images throughout the editing process, Zhou Tao intends to create a third space where the gaze rests on the biodiversity of these escheated areas, as to the human body that performs on it. The “reality” of an urban life is conditioned by the cause of urban planning, where ideologically, everything is under human control. After-reality exposes the beauty of the luxuriant subtropical vegetation, an alienation from the cities, creating a feel of wonder that is beyond narration.

She Said Why Me, May Fung, Hong Kong 1989, 8 min
A woman travels, blindfolded, from an ancient countryside temple to a bustling city. Her surroundings change, but her sense of unease lingers. The film takes the female perspective to combine the past and present, expressing a sense of anxiety that permeated Hong Kong during that particular moment in time.

Jungle of Desire, Wong Ping, Hong Kong, 2016, 6 min 50 sec
An impotent husband, an unsatisfied wife and a megalomaniac policeman. A perfect ecosystem in the concrete jungle. A jungle where you can be at grip with lust and no moral laws.

A surprise film (145 min) will be screened 

Saturday, 10 December
2.00 – 5.00pm

What Time Is It There?, Tsai Ming Liang, Taiwan, 2001, 116 min
After the death of his father, Shiao Kang begins to fear darkness. He locks himself in his room and sleeps with the lights on. He believes that his father’s ghost is still around.

In the day, he sells watches on the crossover bridge of the Taipei Train Station. A woman by the name of Shiang–Chyi, who is about to travel abroad, comes to him to buy a watch. She takes a liking on Shiao Kang’s own watch and is adamant on buying it. According to traditional beliefs, within the period of seven weeks of mourning, a property should never being transferred as it would bring bad luck to the receiver. The story unfolds between the two individuals as their realities start to shift, alternating their experiences with one another.