Visible Secrets Hong Kong’s Women Filmmakers 09.10.09 03.11.09 by: Season sponsored Gala Tickets Confucius Institute A UK-first season of new £10.00 full/£8.00 concs. Tickets Gala Screening/ include a glass of wine or a films from Hong Kong’s Tsingtao beer. Lovers on the Road (15) Fri 30 Oct women filmmakers, Opening Gala/ 20:20 Dir Tsang Tsui Shan/2008/ This Darling Life (12A) including a focus on 75 mins/Mandarin wEng ST Fri 9 Oct Joman Chiang, Dick So, the contemporary films 20:30 Otsuka Masanobu Dir Angie Chen/2008/80 mins/ Lovers on the Road follows of award winning Cantonese wEng ST Lei who, despite their rocky This Darling Life centres around relationship, follows her boyfriend director Ann Hui. a series of interviews where the to Beijing for his new job. This protagonists’ relationships with debut feature marks out Tsang their pets leads them to question Tsui Shan as a director to watch From the auteur to the avant-garde, Hong Kong cinema has a their lives, loves and decisions. and won Best Feature at the strong tradition of women working behind the camera. To celebrate this, The fi lm is punctuated by Chen’s South Taiwan Film and Video own conversation with her brother Festival 2009. Visible Secrets: Hong Kong’s Women Filmmakers, presents a unique and exploration of their family Director introduction and season of fi lm premieres, events and special guests. history, the other ten segments post-screening Q&A with To coincide, season curators Sarah Perks and Andy Willis have visit a wide cross-section of Tsang Tsui Shan. society from a homeless man who guest edited the autumn edition of Film International magazine, focusing lives under a bypass with his dog Presented in association with on Hong Kong cinema and including an extended article on Visible to a woman who single-handedly the Confucius Institute at Secrets, available from the Bookshop. runs her own shelter with over The University of Manchester. 100 dogs. This is a Cornerhouse touring season, for details on UK tour Director introduction and Floating venues and dates visit: www.cornerhouse.org/visiblesecrets post-screening Q&A with Landscapes: Angie Chen. New Directors This strand showcases recent Closing Gala/ features by new and emerging Claustrophobia (PG) directors to keep watch of, revealing the breadth, variety Season curated by Sarah Perks, Tue 3 Nov 20:30 and vibrancy of work Programme & Engagement produced by young Hong Director at Cornerhouse Dir Ivy Ho/2008/100 mins/ Kong women fi lmmakers. and Andy Willis, Reader in Cantonese wEng ST Film Studies at the University Karena Lam, Ekin Cheng, of Salford. Chucky Woo, Eric Tsang The Floating An intriguing retrospective Landscape (12A) narrative strategy reveals much Mon 12 Oct about the relationship between 20:25 two ordinary offi ce workers Tom and Pearl (Hong Kong Dir Carol Lai/2003/96 mins/ superstars Cheng and Lam) and Cantonese wEng ST the colleagues they share a ride Karena Lam, Ekin Cheng, Liu Ye to work with. The directorial debut After the death of her lover a of screenwriter Ivy Ho (Comrades, young woman Mann (Lam) sets A Love Story, July Rhapsody). out to fi nd the landscape her artist boyfriend had painted from a Director introduction and childhood memory, with the aid of post-screening Q&A with Ivy Ho. the local postman Lit, played by rising mainland star Ye. The fi lm’s beauty was rewarded in a best cinematography award for Image credits: Arthur Wong at the Hong Kong Cover: Ming Ming. Film Awards. Opposite left: This Darling Life. Opposite right: Claustrophobia. High Noon (CTBA) Butterfl y (15) Ming Ming (15) Traces of a Dragon: Wed 21 Oct Sat 24 Oct Wed 28 Oct Jackie Chan & His 13:50 17:55 17:55 Lost Family (CTBA) Dir Heiward Mak/2008/100 mins/ Dir Yan Yan Mak/2004/124 mins/ Dir Susie Au/2007/105 mins/ Sat 17 Oct Cantonese wEng ST Cantonese wEng ST Mandarin & Cantonese wEng ST 20:40 Sham Ka-kei, Anjo Leung, Josie Ho, Yuan Tian, Eric Kot Zhou Xun, Tony Yang, Daniel Wu Venus Wong Flavia is a married, thirty Ming Ming is the debut feature Dir Mabel Cheung/2003/94 mins/ High Noon marks the feature fi lm something teacher who feels she from renowned commercial and Cantonese wEng ST debut of 24-year-old Heiward Mak has to accept her life as it is until a music video director Susie Au. Jackie Chan, Fang Shi-De, and is a remarkable achievement chance meeting with an attractive An energetic visual feast, the fi lm Chan Yu-Lan for such a young director. The fi lm young woman in a supermarket follows Ming Ming (played by top In the context of his mother’s focuses on the intertwining lives of revives her memories of her earlier mainland actress Xun) as she poor health, Jackie Chan’s father a group of Hong Kong teenagers relationship with Jin. Butterfl y was steals from gangster Brother decides to reveal the true story and their experiences of sex, selected for several international Cat on her mission to fi nd D behind his family history including violence and education. fi lm festivals and marked the (Hong Kong heart-throb Wu). lost siblings, violent Nationalism, arrival of a vital new voice on the opium smuggling and the fact Hong Kong cinema landscape. that Chan isn’t their real family Wonder Women (15) This name. Not just for Jackie Chan Thu 22 Oct Darling Life: fans (although this fi lm will convert 20:25 Anna & Anna (15) Documentaries you!), this is also a fascinating insight into modern Chinese Dir Barbara Wong/2007/108 mins/ Mon 26 Oct Exploring a wide range of history and family life. Cantonese wEng ST 18:00 documentaries made by women Gigi Leung, Fiona Sit, George Lam Dir Aubrey Lam/2007/95 mins/ directors. See also This Darling Barbara Wong is an actor, writer The Decameron (15) Mandarin & Cantonese wEng ST Life in the Gala Screening section. and director with six feature fi lms Karena Lam, Lu Ye, Tender Huang Sat 31 Oct under her belt. To coincide with the Karena Lam plays Anna, a 20:00 10th anniversary of Hong Kong’s successful business woman Secondary School (PG) handover, Wonder Women follows who moves from Singapore to Thu 15 Oct Dir Yan Yan Mak/2009/117 mins/ Cantonese wEng ST Joy (Leung) through the major Shanghai and meets someone 18:10 events of the decade including the who looks very much like her. An extremely engaging Asian fi nancial crisis and SARS. Heavily infl uenced by Kieslowski’s Dir Tammy Cheung/2003/85 mins/ documentary that unites two Hong Cantonese wEng ST Kong female artists – fi lm director Join us in the Bar afterwards for The Double Life of Véronique, Anna & Anna succeeds in fi nding Director Tammy Cheung, one of Yan Yan Mak and Canto-pop special Wonder Women cocktails Hong Kong’s longstanding and star Denise Ho. Together they only £3.75 each! its own voice and explores what might happen if we met another leading documentary fi lmmakers, are raising the profi le of mental version of ourselves on a different uses a ‘direct cinema’ approach, illness and the attitudes of society route through life. in this documentary which takes a towards it; interviewing over close look at the present condition 20 people including psychiatrists, of the troubled school system and singers, and artists who have the children, teachers and parents all fought with mental illness. who are all part of it. Director introduction and post-screening Q&A with Yan Yan Mak. Image credits: This page: Wonder Women. Opposite page: Left: High Noon. Middle: Secondary School. Right: Traces of a Dragon. Visible Secret: July Rhapsody (CTBA) Night and Fog (CTBA) Snapshots: Où est Snapshots: Additional The 21st Wed 14 Oct Fri 23 Oct la sortie? (CTBA) Invisible City (CTBA) Events century films 14:20 20:20 Sat 31 Oct Sun 1 Nov of Ann Hui Dir Ann Hui/2002/103 mins/ Dir Ann Hui/2008/122 mins/ 14:00 Time TBC Talk/Visible Secrets Cantonese wEng ST Mandarin & Cantonese wEng ST Mon 5 Oct We are pleased to present a very A programme of three films by The second of two programmes Jackie Cheung, Karena Lam, Simon Yam, Zhang Jingchu, 18:30 – 19:30 special focus on director Ann Visible Secrets directors: Heiward exploring the socio-cultural Anita Mui Jacqueline Law FREE, Booking required Hui, one of the most respected, Mak’s Lovers’ Lover is about the space of postcolonial Hong Kong An honest and upstanding teacher Opening this year’s prestigious him and her of a relationship, including Rita Hui Nga Shu’s well loved and internationally of Chinese literature (Cheung) Hong Kong International Film Season curators, Sarah Perks and renowned of all of Hong Kong’s Où est la sortie? by Tsang Tsui Invisible City. Anson Mak’s A Andy Willis, will introduce the fi lms slowly realises he is falling for one Festival, Night and Fog is an Shan follows a Chinese woman’s Wishing Well Under the Not a Big women filmmakers. It is Hui’s 2001 of his students (Lam). A strong absorbing tale of a mainland from Visible Secrets and discuss film Visible Secret that gives this life in Paris and Yan Yan Mak’s Blue Sky explores her position as a the individual fi lmmakers involved. character piece including the Chinese woman’s experiences Scarlet Robe is about a daughter’s foreigner in LA whilst her Goodbye season its title and we are proud last screen role of Anita Mui, an in Hong Kong’s Tin Shui Wai, to showcase the contemporary ambition to follow her performer remembers the iconic Central extremely talented actress and or ‘City of Sadness’, housing mother into Cantonese opera.