To celebrate Lunar New Year 2017 the Chinese Film Forum UK and HOME join forces with the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society to screen work by some of the most outstanding filmmakers working today. Each year the HKIFF invites top directors from Asia to contribute a short piece under their catch-all banner Beautiful. We have selected four of the most exciting pieces and bring them to Manchester to help celebrate the best of Chinese filmmaking and New Year 2017.
Walker
(Tsai Ming-Laing, from Beautiful 2012) approx. 25mins
A monk walks slowly, ever so slowly, through the urban landscape of Hong Kong and at once through his actions makes the familiar strange.
My Way (Ann Hui, from Beautiful 2012) approx. 20mins
Based on a true story, in Ann Hui’s My Way Francis Ng plays a middle aged executive with a wife and family who finally admits he might be happier as a women.
1 Dimension (Lu Yue, from Beautiful 2013) approx. 16mins
Utilising a style that draws on shadow puppetry Lu Yue reinvents a Buddhist fable about good and evil and gives it a self-reflexive twist.
The Hedonists (Jia Zhangke, 2016) approx. 24mins
In Jia Zhangke’s witty contribution to Beautiful a group of unemployed Shanxi coalminers undertake a road trip in search of work.
Selected by Andy Willis, Reader in Film Studies at the University of Salford and Senior Visiting Curator: Film at HOME.
This screening is supported by the Confucius Institute at the University of Manchester. With thanks to the Hong Kong International Film festival Society.
