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Lessons in Dissent

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Lessons in Dissent A SPECIAL SCREENING AND Q&A WITH DIRECTOR MATTHEW TORNE Sponsored by the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University LESSONS IN DISSENT Documentary, Cantonese with English Subtitles, 97 minutes, DCP, 2014 TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2014 7:00 PM - ROOM 250, LORIA CENTER 190 YORK STREET, NEW HAVEN, CT FILM SYNOPSIS Filmed over 18 months, Lessons in Dissent 未夠秤 is a kaleidoscopic, visceral portrait of a new generation of Hong Kong democracy activists. School boy JOSHUA WONG dedicates himself to stopping the introduction of National Education. His campaign begins to snowball when an interview goes viral on YouTube, and with the new school year fast approaching, a showdown with the government seems inevitable. Microphone in hand, and still in his school uniform, he leads 120,000 protesters into battle. Meanwhile, former classmate MA JAI fights against political oppression on the streets and in the courts. Having dropped out of school and dedicated himself to the social movement, he endures the persecution suffered by those not lucky enough to be protected by the media’s glare. Lessons in Dissent catapults the viewer onto the streets of Hong Kong and into the heart of the action: confronting the viewer with Hong Kong’s oppressive heat, stifling humidity and air thick with dissent. For complete film credits and more information, please visit: http://www.lessonsindissentmovie.com/. ____________________________________________________________________ JOSHUA WONG 黃之鋒 Fourteen year old school boy Joshua Wong founded the campaign group Scholarism in April 2011 in response to the lackluster opposition from Hong Kong’s pro-democracy political parties to the announcement that mainland style political education, known as National Education, would replace Civic Education from September 3rd, 2012. Over the course of the film, Joshua goes from an unknown school boy campaigning against National Education on Facebook, to a media superstar and the leader of 120,000 protesters laying siege to the Hong Kong government’s headquarters. Filming began before Joshua’s monumental rise to fame. Consequently, the filmmakers had unfettered access to Joshua enabling them to create the most complete study of an extraordinarily determined school boy and his group of friends as they established Scholarism. MA JAI 馬雲祺 (馬仔) Seventeen year old Ma Jai is representative of a new generation of socially conscious Hong Kongers. He and his friends eschew the materialism so prevalent in Hong Kong, reject the harsh zero-sum game demanded by the ‘freest economy in the world’ and renounce the crony capitalism that dominates Hong Kong’s political system. A former school mate of Joshua’s, in 2010 Ma Jai dropped out of school and dedicated himself to social activism. After flirting with the Civic Party and FM101, he finally settled at the ‘radical’ pro-democracy political party the League of Social Democrats. Unlike Joshua, he is intensely shy and shuns the media spotlight. But, he is passionate about social issues and making a difference. He works tirelessly behind the scenes doing the unglamorous, but essential, work needed to make social activism successful. STATEMENT FROM DIRECTOR MATTHEW TORNE Hong Kong is a paradox. Nowhere else in the world do people have the same level of personal freedoms without the corresponding freedom to choose their own government. Moving to Hong Kong in 2003, its gleaming skyscrapers and neon lights at first seduced me, but I soon realized that this was a glitzy façade for a city suffering an identity crisis. This was highlighted on July 1st, 2003, when half a million people took to the streets, exposing the discontent felt by Hong Kongers towards their own politicians and China’s leaders in Beijing. A decade on and Beijing’s financial overtures and patriotic coercion have somewhat subdued the general public, repairing the veneer of a prosperous harmonious city. But as the events of LESSONS IN DISSENT show, they have not resolved the underlying identity crisis fuelling the discontent: seven million people grappling with what it means to be ‘Hong Kong Chinese’ in post- 1997 Hong Kong. The story of two teenage boys, Joshua Wong and Ma Jai, stood out to me as a vehicle for exploring the Hong Kong identity fifteen years after the Handover. They were so young, and were potentially sacrificing promising futures for a cause many believed already to be lost. I wanted to understand what would make two boys undertake such as Herculean task when they both stood to lose so much personally. I hope the telling of Joshua and Ma Jai’s story will help Hong Kongers find an answer to, “What does it mean to be ‘Hong Kong Chinese’ in post-1997 Hong Kong?” MATTHEW TORNE, born 1980, was educated at the University of Kent and Oxford University, UK, and studied film production at the Hong Kong Film Academy. In 2002, Matthew Torne went to Beijing to teach English at China University of Political Science and Law. When SARS broke out in 2003, in a matter of days the university administration went from denying there was a problem to closing the university and strongly recommending he left China. Panic gripped Beijing when rumors began circulating that rather than close the airports, the government would ban the sale of airline tickets. Using all the money he had, he bought a ticket out of Beijing to go to Hong Kong, starting a relationship with all things Hong Kong. Fascinated by the July 1st, 2003 protest, he began to read voraciously on Article 23 and Hong Kong’s political system. Returning to the UK two years later to work in the media industry, his love of all things Hong Kong never diminished; he took Cantonese evening classes and he continued to read up on Hong Kong’s history and political development, eventually culminating in a Master’s Degree in Modern Chinese Studies at Oxford University, for which he wrote his dissertation on Hong Kong’s post-1997 political development and the possible options for democratic reform. Wanting to reach a much wider audience than the readership of academic papers and realizing that 2012 would be a unique year in Hong Kong, with both the Chief Executive and Legislative Council elections taking place, in 2011 he came to Hong Kong to begin researching a possible documentary. After meeting Ma Jai and Joshua Wong, he knew he had two interesting characters and all he could do was hope that 2012 would be an eventful year. He embarked on filming Lessons in Dissent without funding in place, after all historical events do not wait for funding partners, the film was funded bit by bit; often with only just enough to cover the upcoming expenses as funders came on board. .
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