NOVEMBER AT LINGNAN CULTURAL STUDIES: Workshops, Talks, Screenings
THE FUGITIVE IMAGE SAATH-SAATH: MUSIC ACROSS THE WATERS, 2018 COSMOPOLITANISM, REBELLION AND SEXUAL CITIZENS – AN EVANS CHAN RETROSPECTIVE
WELCOME TO NOVEMBER
2018 marks an epochal moment for the Department of Cultural Studies at Lingnan University. We have just concluded a year of celebrations for the 50th Anniversary of Lingnan’s establishment in Hong Kong, including an inter-disciplinary lecture series on Culture and Society co-hosted with the Hong Kong Arts Centre; installations, screenings and seminars under the rubric of The Performing Archive, in collaboration with Asia Art Archive; and musical explorations under the Cantonese Opera project and the ongoing India-Hong Kong-China performances.
Continuing on what was initiated in the previous months, we are delighted to host an exciting line-up of events through the month of November 2018. Crossing disciplinary and institutional boundaries, engaging with performers, artists, film-makers and scholars, these events showcase the best of critical and creative thinking related to cultural practice.
The events will be held at Lingnan University and at our partner institutions: Tai Kwun Centre for Heritage and the Arts, Hong Kong Arts Centre, Para Site Gallery, Hanart Gallery, and Asia Art Archive, thus assembling a network of performative locations that will resound all month long with the sounds, colours and words of our programmes.
Put together with help from Stephen Ching-Kiu Chan and Ashish Rajadhyaksha, the three nodes of November at Cultural Studies are The Fugitive Image; Saath-Saath: Music across the Waters II; and Cosmopolitanism, Rebellion and Sexual Citizens- An Evans Chan Retrospective.
For registration and enquiries, please write to [email protected].
We look forward to welcoming you at these events.
Tejaswini Niranjana Head, Department of Cultural Studies
THE FUGITIVE IMAGE Curated by: Ashish Rajadhyaksha In partnership with Tai Kwun Contemporary, Asia Art Archive and Para Site
Images represent historical epochs in complex ways. Famous images through the twentieth century are known because they make immediate meaning, which can travel and become significant anywhere. In recent years however, many of the most crucial images of our times are hazy, incompletely transparent; where their ability to be meaningful dependent on how meaning is made of them, by whom, and in what circumstances. Their value arises as a site-specific co-production between the image, its maker, and its viewer. _____
Impossible Images
For all the mistrust in the idea of documentary truth, in recent years the documentary image has received a new lease of life, finding a new power with which to inform, interpellate, instruct, govern. ‘Media realisms’, proposes Hito Steyerl, increasingly underpin their truth claims through a ‘politics of spectacle, speed and intensity’. In many ways this realisation takes us back to the origins of several New Cinema movements across Asia: to a generation of films made more or less simultaneously in East, South East and South Asia, using grainy footage taken in real conditions, in available lighting: where reference to the ‘real’ was as much to their actual production context as it was to cinematic realism. This is a two-session workshop, coinciding with the presence of the filmmaker Tsai Ming Liang at Tai Kwun Centre, with a focus on the image and its relationship to truth, and is a part of the Film and Cinema Studies course being offered at Lingnan University.
I Workshop with Ackbar Abbas: Second New Wave Taiwanese Film Thu/Fri Nov 15-16, 2018, 10 am-12 noon, A Hall Studio, Tai Kwun Centre for Heritage and Arts (For registration: https://www.taikwun.hk/en/learn/detail/second%20new%20wave%20taiwanese%20film%20intensi ve%20with%20ackbar%20abbas/231)
II Tsai Ming-Liang Screenings Thu Nov 15, LBYG01, Lingnan University 2 pm: Rebels of the Neon God (1992, 106 min) 3.45-6.10 PM – Stray Dogs (2013, 135 min) 6.15-6.45 – Walker (2012, 25 min)
III Talk by Ackbar Abbas: Art Film Hour: Filmic Landscapes Tue Nov 20, 7-8.30 pm JC Cube, Tai Kwun Centre (For registration: https://www.taikwun.hk/en/learn/detail/art%20film%20hour%3A%20filmic%20landscapes%20with %20ackbar%20abbas/230) _____
Heritage, Repatriation and the Site-Specific Image
Occasionally, images taken during intense political struggle literally incarnate the familiar dictum of an image speaking a thousand words. More often, however, both the image itself, and the thousand words it condenses, are locked in a far more complex struggle of intelligibility: where the relationship between image, time and context both hides and reveals a simmering history of practice beneath. In this workshop, around 15 participants, from artists to theorists, speak for around 30 minutes about a single image that captivated them in some way.
Emerging Art Professionals Workshop, Para Site Gallery Sat Nov 17, 14.00-14.30/Mon Nov 19, 15.00-18.30 _____
Chronology, Classification, Notation – Performance in the Long Run
I Talk by Linda Lai, ‘Remembering a Performance’ Wed Nov 28 7.30 pm, A Space, Asia Art Archive
In July 1989, a performance work took place at the Sheung Wan Civic Centre. Titled Object-act-ivities, it comprised a series of improvised actions with objects and body movements, as artists from the visual arts, literature, and dance created a space of mourning following the crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests. In 2006, in a project titled LOOK: Object-act-ivities, and more recently in 2016 in a project with students at the School of Creative Media, the City University of Hong Kong, titled Object-Subjectivities, Lai attempted to reconstruct the 1989 performance. Using various notational means, from chronological classification to textual transcription, the projects opened new ways by which incomplete and fragmentary documentation could be reconstructed through forging new relationships with past events of history.
Lai’s talk will include clips of a video documentation of the original Object-act-ivities event of 1989 acquired from the artist Choi Yanchi, alongside subsequent reconstructions. The video is part of thecollection of the Out of Context Research Project at AAA, which focuses on the art ecology of Hong Kong during the 1980s. This talk is one of a series of programmes at AAA that inquire into the history of performance art and its relationship to archives. It is also part of The Fugitive Image, a series of events initiated by the Department of Cultural Studies of Lingnan University, which investigates the circumstances under which images conceal and reveal their latent content.
II Workshop by Linda Lai: ‘Objects and Stories: Remembrance and Narration of the Past’ (Part of the Lingnan University course by Stephen Ching-Kiu Chan, ‘Narrating Hong Kong’) Thu Nov 29, 3-6 pm, MBG07 Lingnan University
“If narratives are taken as those tales which treat what happened to Hong Kong as a place in relation to what its people want as a community… then their core is the question of desire”. The Narrating Hong Kong course looks for for traces of hope, fear, anxiety, ideology as well as imagination.
In this open workshop, Linda Lai works with participants to discuss how the archive and the everyday can sometimes come together with large political histories. Assuming that archives are not always, and not even necessarily, large institutional repositories, this workshop explores how an archive may be created even from the everyday, how its contents may be notated, classified and how new chronologies for the present may be put together. ______
Linda Lai Chiu Han is a Hong Kong-based artist, working at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. In 2004 she founded the Writing Machine Collective, a Hong Kong-based new media art group, and in 2010 she started the art collective Floating Projects, now a site for interdisciplinary and intermedia art experiment. She has participated in various international art, experimental film and video festivals and art events.
SAATH-SAATH: MUSIC ACROSS THE WATERS, 2018 Curated by: Tejaswini Niranjana At Lingnan University, Hanart Gallery and Asia Art Archive In partnership with Hanart Gallery and Asia Art Archive Supported by Moonchu Foundation and Kwan Fong Cultural Research and Development Programme
About Saath-Saath
This is a series of musical collaborations across India and China. The two traditions go back to ancient times, but are seemingly incapable of collaborating because of basic differences in the practice. Their apparent musical incompatibility signals, in a microcosm, why these two ancient cultures often appear incapable of a conversation. The collaborations enabled by Saath Saath – which has to date included classical singers from India, musicians and performers from Kunqu opera, instrumental performers on the pipa and yangqin, and practitioners of Cantopop – begin with a different presumption: that the connections may well be found in the way each tradition encounters modernity. Major issues from the social sciences get translated into conditions of practice when musicians encounter questions like: what does improvisation mean in modern times? When do traditions become ‘fixed’, and what happens when their fixity, or their underlying beliefs, are challenged? Does a focus on the practice of music, including here literally the condition of its rehearsal, open new possibilities? What does skill mean in the present? What do modes of performance and musical teaching styles in India and China tell us about how we relate to our everyday worlds?
Musical Collaborations: Bindumalini Narayanswamy, Chow Yiu-Fai, Ip Kimho, Joyce Tang, Mitche Choi (Chin Shan), Omkar Havaldar, Rutuja Lad, Zhang Yi Accompaniment: 陳一凡 Chen Yi Fan, Jorge Ramiro Monroy, 麥嘉威 Mai Jia Wei, Sachin Olkar, 蕭穎 芝 Siu Wing Chi, 孫迪飛 Suen Tik Fei, Pamela Consultants: Li Siu-Leung, Yu Siu Wah
I Sonic Negotiations: Notes in Practice Sat Oct 20, 3-6 pm, Hanart Gallery, Pedder Building 4th Floor, Pedder Street, Central Musicians and scholars from India and Hong Kong together explore the question of ‘practice’ (riyaaz in Hindi) which is common to all musical traditions.
Tejaswini Niranjana (Hindustani vocal), Chow Yiu-Fai (Cantopop lyricist), Ip Kimho (yangqin) and Joyce Tang (composer) demonstrate their ‘practice’, followed by a joint reflection and dialogue on the significance of practice for each kind of performance.
II Workshop: Introduction to Indian Classical Music With Omkar Havaldar, Bindhumalini Narayanaswamy, and Rutuja Lad Wong Bing Lai Music and Performing Arts Unit/Kwan Fong Cultural Research and Development Programme, Lingnan University November 28, 5.30-7.30 pm, AM 320, Lingnan University Campus
This music workshop will show how to appreciate Indian music, through understanding its melodic structure and through actual compositions.
III Saath-Saath: Music across the Waters II Thursday, Nov 29, 7-8.30 pm, Hanart Gallery, Pedder Building 4th Floor, Pedder Street, Central Chow Yiu-Fai, Ip Kimho, Omkar Havaldar, Rutuja Lad, Bindhumalini Narayanaswamy
In 2017, Cantopop lyricist, scholar and artist Chow Yiu-Fai’s famous song ‘Let us play again/When the new century comes’ (sung by Anthony Wong) was adapted to Hindustani styles by Omkar, Bindhumalini, and Rutuja. In a return engagement, Chow sets new lyrics to tunes sent to him by his Indian collaborators. On the way, questions of meaning, tone and improvisation get addressed.
IV Performance | Staging Gender Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2018 Time: 6.30pm Venue: A Space, 10/F, Hollywood Centre, 233 Hollywood Road, Sheung Wan Performers: Mitche Choi (Chin Shan) (Cantonese opera) and Rutuja Lad (Marathi natyasangeet musical drama) Accompaniment: 陳一凡 Chen Yi Fan, Jorge Ramiro Monroy, 麥嘉威 Mai Jia Wei, Sachin Olkar, 蕭穎 芝 Siu Wing Chi Pamela, 孫迪飛 Suen Tik Fei
Staging Gender Friday, 30 Nov 2018, 6.30–8.30pm A Space, Asia Art Archive
Performers: Mitche Choi (Chin Shan) (Cantonese opera) and Rutuja Lad (Marathi natyasangeet musical drama) Accompaniment: 陳一凡 Chen Yi Fan, Jorge Ramiro Monroy, 麥嘉威 Mai Jia Wei, Sachin Olkar, 蕭穎 Siu Wing Chi Pamela, 孫迪飛 Suen Tik Fei Consultants: Li Siu-Leung and Yu Siu Wah
Co-organised by Asia Art Archive and the Department of Cultural Studies at Lingnan University, this two-part musical event brings together Cantonese opera performer Mitche Choi (Chin Shan) and Indian classical singer Rutuja Lad. Framed within the political history of ambiguous and fluid gender identity in both India and China, the performance explore how artists interpret performative cross- dressing in these traditions.
In the first part, Mitche Choi performs three songs, including The Dream Encounter at Lake Tai, a theme song from an opera based on the legend of Xi Shi, one of the renowned Four Beauties of imperial China; A Wanderer’s Autumn Grief, a classic Cantonese operatic song from the late 19th century Qing Dynasty, which tells about a love story between a literati and a courtesan; and Revisiting the Willow Pavilion, which describes its author’s longing for his beloved-no-more, which was popularized by the late nineteenth century songstress Xu Liuxian known for singing in male voice.
In the second part, Rutuja Lad presents famous songs by Bal Gandharva (1888-1967), a male actor and singer known for playing major female roles in early 20th century natyasangeet musical theatre in the Marathi language. Lad’s performance include songs from legendary plays Manapmaan (Pride and Insult, 1911), Swayamvar (The Ritual of a Bride Choosing her Groom, 1916)––commonly viewed as the birth of modern Marathi drama––and Sant Kahnopatra (Saint Kanhopatra, 1931).
The performance is followed by a conversation on gender, music, and performance, led by cultural theorist Ashish Rajadhyaksha with Li Siu Leung and Yu Siu-wah, two leading scholars on Chinese music and opera.
This event forms part of an ongoing collaboration between AAA and the Department of Cultural Studies at Lingnan University. It is part of AAA’s ongoing research on histories of performance art, women in art history, gender, and complex geographies. It also evidences the Department of Cultural Studies’ investment in the area, both in courses on gender, sexuality and performance studies, as well as in collaborative projects such as Saath-Saath: Music Across the Waters.
Mitche Choi (Chin Shan) is the apprentice of renowned Cantonese Opera performers Man Chin Sui and Leung Siu Sum. First exposed to Cantonese Opera at the age of twelve, she has participated in shows in Hong Kong, Toronto, Vancouver, Los Angeles, and Singapore. In 2017, she graduated from The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts with a degree in Cantonese Opera. She is currently a member of the Young Academy Cantonese Opera Troupe at HKAPA.
Rutuja Lad was introduced to music at the age of five by her parents. She received initial training from Guruvarya Shri Bhalchandra Patre. She has since been trained in the famous Jaipur Atrauli gharana (school) by Pandita Dhondutai Kulkarni and currently by Vidushi Dr. Ashwini Bhide–Deshpande. She has performed in major musical events in various cities in India, as well as in Hong Kong and Shanghai as part of previous editions of the Saath-Saath project curated by Tejaswini Niranjana.
This event is supported by the Kwan Fong Centre for Cultural Research and Development Programme, Lingnan University. We thank Maharashtra Mandal in Hong Kong and Mugdha Karanjekar for their support and contribution.
Program:
Part I – Performed by Mitche Choi
The Dream Encounter at Lake Tai is a theme song from an opera based on the legend of Xi Shi, one of the renowned Four Beauties of imperial China. Xi Shi was selected by Minister Fan Li as a tribute to Fu Chai, the King of Wu, as a plan to bewitch him and restore the Yue Kingdom that had been annexed by Fu Chai. Xi Shi successfully helped restore the Yue Kingdom by sacrificing her life. This song is an ode to the love between Xi Shi and Minister Fan Li, as they meet again in a dream at Lake Tai after Xi Shi’s death. A Wanderer’s Autumn Grief is a traditional Cantonese operatic song from the genre of naamyam (literally “southern tone”) written by Ye Ruibo from Nanhai, Guandong in the first half of the nineteenth century in the Qing Dynasty. The song describes a love story between a literati and a courtesan. In the 1920s, the song was adapted and written as a full Cantonese opera play. Renowned Cantonese opera performers such as Bai Jurong and Xin Mashizeng are among the most well-known interpreters of this naamyam song.
Revisiting the Willow Pavilion is the most representative work of the renowned Cantonese operatic songstress Xu Liuxian who specialized in singing in male voice. The song is created for the purpose of vocal performance at tea houses and describes the author’s remembrance of things past upon revisiting the Willow Pavilion, a symbol of his love lost. The lyrics express the author’s thoughts and feelings of separation from and longing for his beloved-no-more.
Part II – Performed by Rutuja Lad
Nandi: from the play Shakuntal (based in Kalidasa’s Sanskrit epic Shakuntala), written in 1880 by Annasaheb Kirloskar. This song has come to be used as the traditional opening invocation in all sangeet natak.
He of five-faces (Shiva), the wearer of the human-skull-garland, the consort of Parvati, first I bow to him Then I request their son Ganapati to destroy the mountain of obstacles. I will take ‘Shakuntala’, written by Kalidasa, the king of poets, and turn it into a song Although I am not ready, I take this great responsibility on my head With a little blessing, even an ordinary attempt comes to fruition With this adage, poet Balavant offers his word-flowers to the audience.
Nahi Mi Bolat (I Shall Not Speak): from the play Manapmaan, written in 1914 by K.P. Khadilkar In which the princess Bhamini goes in disguise to get to know Dhairyadhar, her betrothed who is a commoner. They fall in love but he is unaware that she is the princess in disguise.
I shall not speak to you, my dear beloved lord should you make me blush with your crass remarks I shall not speak to you, my dear beloved lord
Your bold direct military ways, may not suit chaste delicate love I am but a shy virtuous maiden I shall not speak to you, my dear beloved lord
Johar Maibaap (Greetings, Lord): from the play, and later film, Sant Kanhopatra, written in 1931. Composed by the ‘low-caste’ saint-poet Chokha Mela in the fourteenth century, this is in the form of medieval devotional poetry known as abhanga. It was adapted to the stage as a musical based on the saint’s life. Chokha Mela used the begging of alms, an everyday reality, as a deft metaphor for begging for scraps of benevolence at the feet of Lord Vithoba. In the modern play, Bal Gandharva uses the sentiment but his ‘lord and master’ is now his beloved audience. He would often conclude his concerts with this song: his audience worshipped him and, here, he worshipped them back, in a manner of speaking.
I bow to thee, O Lord, supreme and benevolent parent, my master Vithoba, I am but the humblest and the lowest of servants amongst your slaves Consumed with hunger For left-over crumbs of benevolence from your plate Says Chokha, I brought a humble container for a speck of alms, the left-over crumbs of benevolent attention from your plate I beg you O Lord, supreme and benevolent parent, my master Vithoba I bow to thee, O Lord ...
Naath ha Mazha
Khara to Prema
Cosmopolitanism, Rebellion and Sexual Citizens An Evans Chan Retrospective Curated by: Stephen Chan At Lingnan University And Hong Kong Art Centre
About the Evans Chan Retrospective
In 2014, The Economist cited the late Qing scholar Kang Youwei as the inaugurator of Chinese student activism, of which Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement was its latest manifestation. Evans Chan’s Chinatopia, a documentary about Kang – China’s first major constitutional reformer and the world’s first advocate, at the turn of the 20th century, of gay marriage – creates a thematic canopy for the five films in this retrospective, which explores a Chinese century’s quest for artistic cosmopolitanism (The Rose of the Name), democracy (Raise the Umbrellas) and the empowerment of sexual minorities and women (Death in Montmartre and The Map of Sex and Love). This retrospective includes an open lecture by Chan about Southern China’s cosmopolitanism and the global legacy of Martin Luther King.
Sunday, Nov 18 1. Screening: 1430-1700 Louis Koo Cinema HKAC Death in Montmarte 蒙馬特·女書 (2017, 104m) Hong Kong Premiere Panel discussion: Mette Hjort, Petula Ho; moderated by Denise Tang 2. Screening: 1900-2200 Louis Koo Cinema, HKAC Raise the Umbrellas 撐傘(2015, 119m) + We Have Umbrellas (2018, 30 m) Panel discussion: Nathan Law, Margaret Ng; moderated by Hui Po-keung
Mon Nov 19 1. Screening: 1400-1630 Black Box Studio LBY203 Lingnan University Datong: The Great Society 大同:康有為在瑞典 (2012, 117m) Panel discussion: Tejaswini Niranjana, Vivian Lee, Wang Xiaoming, Mike Ingham, moderated by Stephen Chan 2. Screening: 1700-1930 MBG06 Lingnan University Raise the Umbrellas 撐傘 (2015, 119m) Panel discussion: Ivy Chan; moderated by Law Wing-Sang
Tue Nov 20 Screening: 1930-2200 Louis Koo Cinema HKAC The Map of Sex and Love 情色地圖(2001, 130m) Panel discussion: Gina Marchetti, Mike Ingham
Wed Nov 21 Screening: 1800-2030 Black Box Studio LBY203 Lingnan University Journey to Beijing 北征 (1998, 112m) Panel Discussion: Mok Chiu-you, Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Mary Wong
Thu Nov 22 Screening: 1530-1750 Black Box Studio LBY203 Lingnan University To Liv(e) 浮世戀曲(1991, 108m Q&A with Evans Chan (at Stephen Chan’s class ‘Narrating Hong Kong’)
Fri Nov 23 Screening: 1630-1745 Louis Koo Cinema HKAC Chinatopia 新世紀的康有為 (2018, 73m)
Sat Nov 24 Screening: 1430-1700 Louis Koo Cinema HKAC The Rose of the Name 名字的玫瑰 (2014, 105m) Panel discussion: Yan Pat-to, Louis Ho, moderated by Cheung Ho Sum Organized jointly with House of Hong Kong Literature 香港文學舘
Synopses of films
Cosmopolitanism, Rebellion and Sexual Citizens 書寫 · 佔領 · 情色 an Evans Chan retrospective 陳耀成 電影回顧和講座
In 2014, The Economist cited the late Qing scholar Kang Youwei as the inaugurator of Chinese student activism, of which Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement was its latest manifestation. Evans Chan’s Chinatopia, a documentary about Kang -- China’s first major constitutional reformer and the world’s first advocate, at the turn of the 20th century, of gay marriage creates a thematic canopy for the five films in this retrospective, which explores a Chinese century’s quest for artistic cosmopolitanism (The Rose of the Name), democracy (Raise the Umbrellas) and the empowerment of sexual minorities and women (Death in Montmartre and The Map of Sex and Love). This retrospective includes an open lecture by Chan about Southern China’s cosmopolitanism and the global legacy of Martin Luther King.
《經濟學人》雜誌曾於 2014 年撰文指出，1895 年青末大儒康有為發動 的「公車上書」是現代 中國學生運動的起點，而香港傘運是其最新面貌。陳耀成的《大同》聚焦於這位在廿世紀初， 推動中國修憲變法的先軀，及全球率先倡議同性婚姻的第一人，為這回顧展中的五部電影提供 枝葉聯根的視野，探討百年來中港台追尋的藝術上的國際主義（《名字的玫瑰》），民主發展 （《撐傘》）及女性與性小眾權益的開拓（《蒙馬特·女書》及《情色地圖》）。回顧展包括 一個有關南中國國際主義及馬丁路德金的國際遺產的公開演講。
“Evans Chan has made a singular contribution to Hong Kong cinema and at the same time a major contribution to the whole spectrum of contemporary film-making. His work achieves a seamless blend of fact and fiction to produce an innovative kind of essayistic cinema, driven equally by issues and by his own experiences and perceptions. He draws on everything from literature and political studies to journalism and social-activist campaigns for his subjects – and on everything from film history to performance art for his images. Best of all, he’s rigorously non-conformist: he asks the awkward questions, probes the areas of sensitivity and challenges orthodoxies at every turn.” -- Tony Rayns, British film critic
「對香港電影作出獨特貢獻的同時，陳耀成對整個當代電影創作的範疇都作出了重大的貢獻。 他的作品把虛構與記實天衣無縫地揉合，成為充滿創意的電影散文。他從文學、政治研究、新 聞、社會運動中取材，同時被議題及個人的經歷及感知所推動；而他的映象可以從電影史到表 演藝術，無所不包。最捧的是：他嚴拒隨波逐流。他問令人尷尬的問題，探索敏感之處，而不 停地向所謂正統挑戰。」
-- 東尼 · 雷恩斯 (Tony Rayns) 名影評人/華語電影專家 Death in Montmartre (Color HD/ 105 min/Mandarin and English/Hong Kong/2018) world premiere
Two decades after her suicide in Paris in 1995 at the age of 26, Taiwan’s foundational lesbian novelist Qiu Miaojin has prevailed as a global Chinese LGBTQ icon and an international literary discovery for her “thrillingly transgressive” work. Documentarian Evans Chan traces Qiu’s lovelorn footsteps from Taiwan to Paris to Tokyo, resulting in a Chinese filmic counterpoint to Blue is the Warmest Color with a tragic note. Blending fiction, performing art, and rare interviews with Qiu’s friends, advocates, and associates, including France’s feminist philosopher Hélène Cixous, Death in Montmartre is an artful exploration of the poignant and inspiring life and death of a gay-rights “martyr” in Taiwan, which, in 2017, became the first place in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage.
(Death in Montmartre originated as a Radio Television Hong Kong-commissioned production for its Chinese Writers Series II (2016/2017). And a 52-min version, without English subtitles, was broadcast in Hong Kong in January, 2017.)
《蒙馬特 · 女書》(足本) (Color HD/ 105 min/Mandarin and English/Hong Kong/2018)
世界首映
年僅 26 歲於 1995 年在巴黎自盡的台灣女同志作家邱妙津，歿後廿載，成為國際文壇的重大發 現, 近年廣被翻譯。其長篇首作, 曾被華文女同界奉為「聖經」的《鱷魚手記》去年被《紐約時 報》表揚為「離經叛道...的傑作」。導演陳耀成，穿梳台灣、巴黎、紐約、上海、東京，追溯 邱妙津光亮的人生，撲朔迷離的自死，並以國際視野探討邱的文學遺產。邱昔年的恩師，法國 女文豪埃萊娜 · 西素（Hélène Cixous） 形容足本版的《蒙馬特· 女書》「跨時空、跨物種、跨 性別及跨電影類型，引人入勝，令觀眾如入魔咒。」
（本片原是香港電台「華人作家系列 II」邀約作品；一個 52分鐘的電視版本曾於 2017 年 1 月 在香港播映。這是國語旁白，片長為 106 分鐘的足本版 。）
Raise the Umbrellas (USA/HD/color/117 min/2018; Cantonese and English with English and Chinese subtitles)
Four years later, Hong Kong’s 2014 democratic Umbrella Movement has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, with intense political backlash against protesters still unfolding. Raise the Umbrellas has been hailed as a “moving,” “must-see,” and “the most comprehensive documentary” about this unique 79-day Occupy campaign on Chinese soil. Yet despite its inclusion of anti-Occupy views, such as an interview with the pro-Beijing heavyweight Jasper Tsang, it has repeatedly been the target of censorship. Evans Chan has updated the film’s ending to reflect the latest fallout, and this is its first public screening in Hong Kong after its extensive tour in American and European universities and festivals. “A powerful film,” said French critic Jean-Michel Frodon, “it connects the past and present of Chinese democratic movements, and the multigenerational phenomenon of the Hong Kong occupation.”
This screening will be paired with
We Have Umbrellas (USA/HD/color/30 min/2018; Cantonese and English with English and Chinese subtitles)
A sequel to Raise the Umbrellas, We Have Umbrellas features interviews with Agnes Chow, Kinman Chan, Alex Chow, Kacey Wong, and Shiu Kachun. All of them reflect on their personal situations as well as that of Hong Kong in the post-Umbrella Movement era.
《撐傘》
儘管曾被譽為眾多傘運紀錄片中「最鉅細無遺，細說始末」，並罕有地包納了反佔領觀點訪問 的一部，《撐傘》卻在香港連續踫上禁映風波。此片於過去兩年，在歐美高等學府巡映，並在 月前的柏林文學節展出。導演陳耀成把結尾更新了的《撐傘》再帶回香港放映。這部「強而有 力」的影片鋪陳從 1989 天安門到 2014 年間，連綿三代的香港民主發展；鏡頭從草根階層的屋 邨、到擾攘的佔領區、到紐約華爾街，從而尋索雨傘的美學、哲學及其當代的政治意義。李歐 梵教授說：「從他的康有為電影到《撐傘》，我贊賞陳耀成虔敬地追索許多華人知識份子已經 忘記或背棄的：跨越國界與地界的人的自由與尊嚴...《撐傘》令我感動 — 不因為個別的「領 袖」的話語，而是他拍攝到的個人或集體感情之傾吐。從這角度看，影片是超越政治的。然而 香港的雨傘運動，將有可能逐漸觸刺到所有地區的華人底良知。」
這場放映將加映陳耀成最新完成的《撐傘》延續篇
《我們有雨傘》 (USA/HD/color/30 min/2018; Cantonese and English with English and Chinese subtitles)
片中被訪者包括周庭、周永康、陳健民、黃國才、邵家臻等，談個人及香港傘運後的未來及出 路。
The Map of Sex and Love (2001, 130 min, color, Mandarin w/English subtitles)
Hailed as "a rare film from Hong Kong, wise and profound" by the 2001 Hong Kong International Film Festival, The Map of Sex and Love explores history, past and present, and love, gay and straight, through three interrelated stories – “Rubber Band,” “Belgrade,” and “Nazi Gold.” In “Rubber Band,” a gay dancer is advised to heal his perversity by snapping a rubber band against his wrist; in “Belgrade,” a girl has a traumatic revelation while traveling in Eastern Europe; and in “Nazi Gold,” a filmmaker has an eerie encounter with traces of the Third Reich in Macau. “The film is…seductive as it negotiates the spaces between desire and inhibition, between the troubled mind and the always troublesome body, between cruising and map-making.” (TimeOut London) Bernardo Chow, Cherie Ho, and Victor Ma, who received a nomination for The Best Supporting Actor at the Taiwan Golden Horse Film Festival, give riveting performances.
《情色地圖》 香港/美國 Hong Kong/USA 2001 彩色 Col 35mm 130mins 粵語及英語對白，中、英文字幕 In Cantonese & English with Chinese & English subtitles
多年流徙，陳耀成為個人與香港追求定位的影像之旅再回歸到起點處 ── 香港。影片的靈感來 自他曾經聽到的「三個秘密」：一是「橡皮圈」，同性戀男舞蹈員時常憶起少年時學校的輔導 老師教他用橡皮圈治療不正常的性傾向；「貝爾格萊德」，一名少女在東歐旅遊時精神崩潰， 鬱結久久難解；第三個是「納粹黃金」，傳聞二次大戰時，葡萄牙人曾將納粹德國擄掠的猶太 人黃金送入澳門。陳耀成前作《浮世戀曲》中後六四的焦慮, 《 北 征 》嚃港人的矛盾心態， 也像隨著香港主權移交而換上新色相。在 97 之後，沙士與傘運來臨之前，有身份與去留未明， 愛慾與歷史都失掉地圖的曖昧時空。首映時，香港電影節讚美這是「香港罕有, 充滿睿智」的 影片。《倫敦 TimeOut》 形容《情色地圖》內容知性「但經常妖媚誘人，而三位演員 [包括提 名金馬獎最佳男配角的馬才和] 的演出富於魅力。」
The Rose of the Name: Writing Hong Kong (105 min/HD/documentary/In Cantonese, Mandarin, English and Japanese with Chinese and English Subtitles)
As the first film to feature scenes from Hong Kong’s 2014 democratic Umbrella Movement, this essayistic documentary offers a portrait of Dung Kai-cheung, the city’s emerging voice in world literature, a slice of social history through interviews with his family members, as well as a mini-history of Hong Kong literature. Rose explores not only the challenge faced by writers working in a so-called "cultural desert," but also the search of an ethnic and cultural minority for its literary and political voice in Greater China and the world. “Chan’s wide-angle perspective succeeds not only in placing the writer firmly in the line that stretches from Borges to Calvino,” said British film critic Tony Rayns, “but also convincingly connects Dung’s work with Hong Kong’s new generation of protestors themselves. This is cinema for the 21st century: a conceptual blend of fiction, nonfiction and performance art that’s completely in synch with its subject.”
《名字的玫瑰 —“董啟章”地圖》 (105 min/HD/documentary/In Cantonese, Mandarin, English and Japanese with Chinese and English Subtitles) 國際版的《名字的玫瑰 —“董啟章”地圖》是展露 9/28 啓動雨傘運動的催淚鎮壓場面的第一部 電影。於香港1967年的暴動期間出生，而在2014的騷動不安之年成為香港書展年度作家的小 說家董啓章，已經成為香港進軍國際文壇的重要聲音。他的生命及創作歷程見證了香港社會的 重大轉變。導演陳耀成透過董家三代的訪問橫切了一頁香港社會史，並追溯香港社運史，香港 文學史。 貫徹片中的是置於電車上層的攝影機，如同在一個流動的舞台上, 既拍攝改編為舞台 劇的董啓章短篇小說，復眺覽時代空間中, 文藝、生命與歷史面對的嚴峻挑戰。英國影評人 東 尼•雷恩斯說: 「這是廿一世紀的電影：概念上涵蓋記錄、劇情及表演藝術，而與其主題完全配 合。」
Chinatopia
(2014/Evans Chan/Hong Kong/Taiwan/USA/ 73 min; Documentary in English and Chinese with English and Chinese subtitles)
Chinatopia is an abridged version of Evans Chan’s two-part documentaries, acclaimed by critics and historians, Two or Three Things about Kang Youwei (2013) and Datong: The Great Society (2011). While previously known mainly for spearheading the Hundred Days Reform (1889), a modernization drive crushed by Empress Dowager Cixi, Kang Youwei comes alive in Chinatopia through evocation of his cosmopolitanism and Asian American activism – including an anti-American boycott he orchestrated in 1905-06 to beat back the Chinese Exclusion Acts, which resulted in two meetings with a conciliatory Theodore Roosevelt. “From a diasporic perspective,” said historian Huang Ke-wu, “Chan has fashioned an unusual framework to examine modern Chinese history…[the Datong films force] us to re-examine…the idealism and disillusionment that the Chinese people have experienced during the past century… they matched triumphantly ‘the truth of history’ with ‘the beauty of art.’”
《新世紀的康有為》 (2014/Evans Chan/Hong Kong/Taiwan/USA/ 73 min; Documentary in English and Chinese with English and Chinese subtitles)
這是《大同：康有為在瑞典》及《康有為二三事》合剪而調整的長版。影片更著墨廿世紀初北 歐發靭的福利社會，對康撰《大同書》的啓發；南海先生因策劃杯葛美國貨反撃排華法，與泰 迪·羅斯福總統因不打不相識的交往；康的國際主義，他對西方民主的憧憬...已故專研中國馬 克思主義的名學者德里克讚美陳耀成重新發崛中國近代史，是「賦予康有為一個新的歷史任務
Co-presented by 合辦︰ Hong Kong Arts Centre 香港藝術中心 Lingnan University 嶺南大學
Supporting organisations 支持機構︰ The House of Hong Kong Literature 香港文學館 Radio Television Hong Kong 香港電台 ___
Fri Nov 23 Lingnan University 50th Anniversary Lecture Series (2017-18) Inter-disciplinary Lectures on Culture and Society Co-organized by Department of Cultural Studies, Lingnan University and Hong Kong Arts Centre Talk: 6.45-8.30 pm, HKAC Eric Hotung Studio
Cosmospolitanism, Civil Disobedience and the Global Legacy of Martin Luther King: Talk by Evans Chan Respondent: Leo Ou-fan Lee Moderator: Stephen Chan
Through the 19th century, the motor of China’s geopolitical change shifted from Eurasia to its southern coast. The impact of the West on China, while resulting in disastrous territorial concessions, also gave rise to a Southern Cosmopolitanism, with Guangdong native, Kang Youwei, becoming a cutting-edge figure. 120 years ago, Kang led the first major drive to modernize China in the ill-fated Hundred Days Reform. Three years earlier, in 1895, he organized ‘Gongche Shangshu’, the first Chinese ‘student movement’ to petition the royal court for political reform. For many, this activist lineage’s latest manifestation was the Umbrella Movement, Hong Kong’s 79-day Occupy demonstration for universal suffrage in 2014. Following the Arab Spring and a worldwide economic justice movement spearheaded by Occupy Wall Street, the Umbrella Movement originated as a civil disobedience campaign called ‘Occupy Central with Love and Peace’. One crucial document that inspired Benny Tai, law professor and conceiver of Occupy Central, is Martin Luther King’s ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ (1963). The Occupy campaign used the Birmingham essay as the foundation for an outstanding civic education initiative drawing upon a global legacy evolved from Thoreau and Gandhi. Evans Chan, New York-based film critic and director of “Raise the Umbrellas” (2016/2018) and acclaimed documentaries about Kang Youwei, explores this early stage of the Umbrella Movement to survey the continuing relevance of King’s legacy in the US, Hong Kong, and the world today.