Programme 4: Growing Pains
20.11.2021 (Sat) 1710｜BC
with post-screening talk
host by Wong Ka Ying
Seven powerful films from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and Myanmar redefine coming of age with unique voices. Unpacking important subjects including queerbaiting, war trauma, and bullying, these works confront us with the dark side of being young in specific contexts. Yet they are relatable, as we, too, have struggled to be ourselves.
Finalist Works of Local Competition
Meow
CHEUNG Chung Sang
BA in Department of Motion Picture, NTUA
Hong Kong, Taiwan｜2020｜15′｜Fiction
In Mandarin with Chinese & English subtitles
2020 ELTA TV Award for Best Screenplay, MOD Microfilm and Golden Short Film
A kitten on the school roof leads Jean and Janine to each other. Soon after, terrible things that happened to Jean one after another leave Janine hopeless. Is the bond between these two a blessing, or a curse?
CHEUNG Chung Sang
Daisy Cheung graduated from the Department of Motion Picture, NTUA. During her studies, she wrote and directed three short films. In 2019, her production Together was nominated for the Best Drama Film in the 41st Golden Harvest Awards & Short Film Festival. Now, she is a freelance art worker.
Email: daisycheung0027@gmail.com
Juror’s Comment
導演話意念源起於童年遺憾。實在都勾起我嘅個人回憶……
故事有呢度好。走到去台灣，用台灣演員拍，一樣抵達內心。
難得真摰，加上處理有度就更得人鍾意嘞。兩位小演員好可愛。
Survival HK
Louise PAU
Experimental Animation MFA, School of Film/Video, CalArts
Hong Kong| 2019｜7′｜Fiction、Animation
In Cantonese & English with Chinese & English subtitles
2020 Special Mention (Animation Category), ifva Awards
2020 Jury Award (Student Category), Animafest Zagreb
2019 Jury Award (Main Competition), New Chitose Airport International Animation Festival
An English-listening test takes place inside a small classroom while a typhoon brews outside. The students struggle to focus, their attention divided between the test recording and what is happening beyond the test.
Louise PAU
Louise Pau is a moving image artist from Hong Kong. Her work explores the identity of a Hong Konger in the face of post-colonialism and shifting power structures.
Email: lou.ppau@gmail.com
Juror’s Comment
公開試元素親切感十足，然而對外地觀眾亦有趣味，故事短小精悍，兩年過後，仍充滿深意。
Faith
KAN Po Yi
HD in Creative Film Production, Academy of Film, HKBU
Hong Kong｜2020｜24′｜ Fiction
In Cantonese with Chinese & English subtitles
To be a fan is to believe and offer devotion. Kitty and Christy are fans of a K-pop group, “AF;” they chase everything about them. One day Jeffery, one of AF’s members, comes to Hong Kong. The girls try so hard to get closer to their idol, but the image they believe in is just an illusion.
KAN Po Yi
Major in script writing, trying hard to be a professional writer.
Email: poyikan@gmail.com
Juror’s Comment
作品直面處理追星、「賣腐」（queer baiting）、私影、同性情愫和成長的題目，描寫得坦誠赤裸，技術或有沙石，但仍不減驚艷。
ephwaipi
NG Cheuk Yan｜YEUNG Sik Yung
Undergraduate Programme, School of Journalism and Communication, CUHK
Hong Kong｜2019｜8′｜Fiction、Documentary
In Cantonese, English, & French with Chinese & English subtitles
2019 Sundance Film Festival: Hong Kong Short Film Competition – Honorary Mention
2019 ifva Festival Open Category – Finalist
Two girls fantasize about making a declaration to the world.
YEUNG Sik Yung,
NG Cheuk Yan
Kitty Yeung is a filmmaker at Nowness Asia while Candice currently works at a local production company. They are still two restless, freedom-loving souls who have something to tell the world.
Email: ephwaipi@gmail.com
Juror’s Comment
爽快，隨性，充滿玩味。炫目畫面背後，是對學校、宗教以至性別真摰叩問。作為給自己的FYP，或者本就不需要強說意義。
Asian Student Works
Humongous! とてつもなく大きな
Aya Kawazoe
Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts
Japan｜2020｜11′｜Fiction
In Japanese with Chinese & English subtitles
Hong Kong Premiere
2020 Cannes International Critics’ Week
2020 New York Film Festival
2020 Black Canvas Contemporary Film Festival
Eiko has repeated flashbacks from childhood. She is enveloped by a huge noise, a boy starts running, and Eiko falls off a swing. Are they memories or dreams, or are they the present day, or do they belong to someone else? The sound expands. That’s really something huge.
Aya Kawazoe
Born in 1989. Graduated from Tama Art University in 2014, where she learned filmmaking from Shinya Tsukamoto and Shinji Aoyama. After working in the motion-picture industry, she enrolled in the national film school (master’s program at Tokyo University of the Arts) in 2019 with Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Nobuhiro Suwa as tutors.
Girl in the Water
HUANG Shi Rou
MFA of Graduate Institute of Animation and Film Art, TNNUA
Taiwan｜2021｜8′｜Animation
No dialogue
Hong Kong Premiere
2021 Golden Fireball Award (Taiwan Section), Kaohsiung Film Festival International Short Film Competition
2021 Nominated for Best Animated Short Film, Golden Horse Award
2021 Graduation Short Films in Competition, Annecy International Animation Film Festival
In a room where the walls are falling apart, a woman is waiting for the just-repaired surface to dry as she touches the scar on her leg and remembers a romantic relationship. “Girl in the Water” is a hand-drawn animated short that is feminine and has a slow narrative rhythm, painted in watercolor and pastel, frame by frame. The warmth characteristic of hand drawing contrasts quite markedly with the distress that the main character suffers. The film talks about the convalescence of broken hearts. By the process of fixing the wall, viewers are able to experience the journey of convalescence.
HUANG Shi Rou
Shi-Rou is a freelance animator and illustrator. Specializing in cel-animation, she often finds herself deep-diving into female consciousness. Beneath the gentle and cloud-like colors of her work lies the poetic and visceral storytelling that defines this young and talented soul.
Broken
Nan Khin San Win
Yangon Film School
Myanmar｜2021｜13′｜Documentary
In Burmese with English subtitles
Hong Kong Premiere
2021 Special Mention, New Asian Currents Award, Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival
2021 Nominated for Best Asian Short, Seoul International Women’s Film Festival
Life for women and girls is far from safe in parts of conflict-affected Kayah State. In this
absorbing short documentary, first-time director Khin San Win explores both her own
trauma and that of another woman from her village in a bid to break the silence that
shrouds violence against women in Myanmar.
Nan Khin San Win
Nan was born and grew up in Bawlakhe Township in Myanmar’s Kayah State. She discovered her passion for filmmaking while taking part in a workshop run by Yangon Film School’s alumni in the Kayah capital of Loikaw. ‘’I want to reveal the many hidden stories in Kayah’’ she says of her decision to enrol at YFS in 2020. Broken, in which she bravely examines her own biography, is her first documentary as a director.
