Blue Island

CHAN Tze-Woon

Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan〡2022〡 Doc〡Color, BW〡97 min〡Cantonese, Mandarin, English
✧ 2022 International Film Festival Rotterdam-Bright Future
✧ 2022 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival-Best International Feature Documentary Award
✧ 2022 Taiwan International Documentary Festival - Visionary Award - Grand Prize, Asian Vision Competition - Special Jury Prize, Audience Award

These are all stories of youth and rebellion. Through reconstructions, the film dramatizes the scarred memories by using four young people who participated in the 2019 protests in Hong Kong. These real protagonists are separated by time and history, yet their lives parallel and overlap. Because of the defiant backgrounds, they find themselves in similarly chaotic predicaments. Images flow between documentary and drama, blending archival materials, interviews and behind-the-scenes footage, weaving an expansive tapestry that encompasses these tumultuous eras… How do the young people of this city envision their future today? What do they think about this seemingly unwinnable revolution?

Director

CHAN Tze-Woon

CHAN Tze-Woon is a Hong Kong-based director and writer. His debut feature-length documentary Yellowing (2016) examined the Umbrella Movement. It won the Shinsuke Ogawa Prize at the 2017 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Documentary at the 2016 Taipei Golden Horse Film Awards. Chan’s first two short films, The Aqueous Truth (2013) and Being Rain: Representation and Will (2014), both broached the subject of Hong Kong’s political situation by means of conspiracy plots and the mockumentary form. His recent work Blue Island (2022) blends documentary and fiction to reconstruct Hongkongers’ history. It was selected in the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and won the Best Documentary at Hot Docs.

05.01 ㊀ 15:30〡屏東大學 社會發展學系

導演以抽離視角選取香港三段歷史,以「重演」及「戲中戲」讓年輕一輩投入三代人的生命軌跡及政治烙印,混合虛實,人物雖多但敘事清晰,用類比與重壘的碰撞去檢視香港人多重身分的認同及影響。結尾的抗爭者肖像,其沈默所傳遞的迴盪質感更是對人本身的關注和共情。(紀錄類評語)

影片以年輕世代的香港人回顧香港政權與社會的變遷和對話。1967年勞工反英殖民到2019年反送中運動的半世紀間,香港人在國-族間認同的矛盾與轉變。但不論哪一個政權,有壓迫就有反抗。(人權關懷獎評語)

The upheavals in 2019 left all Hongkongers with a loss of words. Parting ways and losing freedom became something so near to myself. I was born in the very last decade of Britain’s colonial rule over Hong Kong. When the Chinese regime continued the city’s trepidation and uncertainty, the accompanying political and social turbulence prompted me to explore the nuances of Hong Kong people’s collective identity. Upon closer examination of this city’s past, I am seeing history repeating so frequently in mere decades. This film is a desperate attempt to capture the final moments of a sinking island. This is about “us”, but what is “us”? What is “Hong Kong”? From the past to the present, people from different generations have never stopped imagining Hong Kong and the future of the city, and they have paid the price for it. Through re-presentation of memories and juxtaposing people of different ages, the mental journeys of these survivors or remnants of Hong Kong are being connected, collided as well as rediscovered.

This film serves not only as individual testimonies, but a cord which continuously bounds generations of people on this island together.

這是近年看有關香港反送中事件相關的創作裡,最喜歡的一個作品。深切的提問、靜謐的思索、細膩的同理,如何將所有的矛盾、悲傷憤怒與困惑,收束在靜謐的思索裡,這樣靜謐的能耐,讓我感受到巨大的柔情與愛,來回應香港這塊土地。

「50年前,超過二十萬人為了逃離中國文化大革命來到香港;今日,國安法實行後,已有超過九萬人離開香港;在香港,持續了三十年的六四燭光紀念晚會,在2021年首度被禁止,過去的主辦單位被取締、組織者被捕。」創作者,仍在思索仍在感受仍在提問仍在嘗試回應,關於香港所經歷的一切。
 
身為觀者,我喜歡創作者透過電影思考的方式、回應的方式,我喜歡這樣的溝通這樣的認識,這對我而言,是重新感受香港的一個角度。推薦給想要認識香港、認識反送中事件的你,這樣溫柔的靠近,溫柔且舒服的鬆動,非常喜歡。

11.06 ㊅ 22:20〡台南新光影城 4 廳
11.09 ㊂ 20:40〡台南新光影城 4 廳〡 Q&A session with the Director
Buying Tickets

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