(Re)presenting Diaspora: A Case Study of Hong Kong Film Festival UK
Following a drastic growth in the population of diasporic Hong Kongers in the United Kingdom, the Hong Kong Film Festival UK adopted diaspora as a theme for the festival’s second edition. The closing film The Green is Greener on the Other Side (Crystal Wong, 2022) and the short film programme “The I...
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| Pubblicato in: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/transtexts, |
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| Autori principali: | , |
| Natura: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
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Transtext(e)s Transcultures
2024
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| Accesso online: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Riassunto: | Following a drastic growth in the population of diasporic Hong Kongers in the United Kingdom, the Hong Kong Film Festival UK adopted diaspora as a theme for the festival’s second edition. The closing film The Green is Greener on the Other Side (Crystal Wong, 2022) and the short film programme “The Inbetweeners” deal directly with the recent Hong Kong diaspora in the UK. Other patterns of diaspora with Hong Kong as the focal location are represented in other films at the festival. Ping Pong (Leong Po-chih, 1984) and Flowing Stories (Tsang Tsui-shan, 2014) depict Hong Kongers who emigrated in the earlier days for economic reasons, but from the UK and Hong Kong perspectives respectively. In the context of the Film Festival, they provoke thoughts on the recent wave of the Hong Kong diaspora, as this paper will analyse. Blue Island (Chan Tze-woon, 2022), shown at the Festival, also cinematically touches upon the various forms of Hong Kong diaspora at historical junctures, and explores how diaspora more than half a century ago illuminates our understanding of that at present. Apart from showcasing representations of diaspora within the cinematic space, the Film Festival as a presenter of these and other titles is also attempting to create a space outside of the filmic texts for the negotiation of diasporic Hong Kong identity. Screening of films that would be banned in Hong Kong because of depictions of protests in 2019 evoke diasporic Hong Kongers’ collective memories of such civic campaigns and might foster a sense of community among them when watching the films together in UK theatres. On the other hand, films from Hong Kong’s commercial cinema shown at the Festival, creating a shared viewing experience among Hong Kongers in diaspora and those at home, would be beneficial to the formation of an imagined community that transgresses geographical boundaries. |
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