Finding Kukan: A Film Screening, Commentary and Audience Q&A with Dir. Robin Lung
In the award-winning documentary Finding KUKAN, director Robin Lung investigates the compelling story of Hawaiʻi born Li Ling-Ai, the uncredited producer of KUKAN. KUKAN is a landmark color documentary about World War II China that received an Academy Award in 1942 before becoming “lost” for decades. In Finding KUKAN, Lung discovers a badly damaged print of KUKAN and pieces together the inspirational tale behind Li and her cameraman Rey Scott. Robin Lung will present the full 75-minute documentary Finding KUKAN (in English with Chinese subtitles), speak about her 8-year-long filmmaking journey, and answer questions from the audience.
About Robin Lung:
Robin Lung is a 4th generation Chinese American from Hawaiʻi with an 18-year history of bringing untold minority and womenʻs stories to film. A Stanford University and Hunter College graduate, she became a filmmaker after successful careers in book publishing and higher education. Lung made her directorial debut with Washington Place: Hawai‘i’s First Home, a 30-minute documentary for PBS Hawai‘i about the legacy of Hawaiʻi’s Queen Lili‘uokalani and her personal home. She was the associate producer for the national PBS documentary Patsy Mink: Ahead of the Majority, and producer/director of the feature documentary FindingKUKAN, which was selected to be broadcasted nationally on PBS World’s America ReFramed series and has won multiple awards at film festivals across America.
Date: Monday 20 May 2019
Time: 2:30-4:30pm
Venue: 2.42, 2/F, Sir Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU
We Have Boots: A Film Screening and Q&A with Director Evans Chan
We Have Boots is a moving sequel to Raise the Umbrellas, featuring young activists, Agnes Chow, Ray Wong, Alex Chow, Tommy Cheung; artist Kacey Wong; legislator Shiu Ka-chun; and Occupy initiators, Benny Tai and Chan Kin-man. In the post-Umbrella era of disqualification and prosecution, they reflect on their personal paths – from pursuing graduate studies or seeking political asylum overseas, to accepting the political cost of dissent by confronting the prospect of imprisonment. “Affecting… intellectual discussions blending into the melancholic meditative space of post-Occupy Hong Kong… [We Have Boots is a film] about holding on to hope despite despair.” (HKOI, 14/1/19)
About the Director:
Evans Yiu Shing Chan is a New York- and Hong Kong-based critic, librettist and an independent filmmaker of more than a dozen fiction and documentary films, which have been screened around the world. His directorial debut To Liv(e)(1991) was listed by Time Out as one of the 100 Greatest Hong Kong Films. A critical anthology about his work, Postcolonalism, Diaspora, and Alternative Histories: The Cinema of Evans Chan was published by the HKU Press in 2015. We Have Boots is the sequel to his acclaimed documentary Raise the Umbrellas (2016).
Date: Tuesday 23 April 2019
Time: 5:30-8pm
Venue: CPD 3.04, Sir Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU
All are welcome.
Dialogue with Filmmakers 2019
This year’s programme features in-depth dialogues with eight renowned documentary filmmakers and artists: Tsai Ming Liang, Jewel Maranan, Bettina Perut, Iván Osnovikoff, Ljubomir Stefanov, Tamara Kotevska, Philippe Bellaiche and Luke Lorentzen.
Date: 21 – 28 . 03 . 2019 | 7:30pm
Location: Studio Room 303, Chong Yuet Ming Cultural Centre, HKU
Events
21 . 3 . 2019 (Thu): Dialogue with Jewel Maranan
Jewel Maranan is an independent documentary filmmaker and producer from the Philippines. She started working for independent documentaries in 2008, tackling conflict situations in Manila. Throughout the years, she has developed a deep interest in the ways by which history inches through ordinary life. She fixed her critical eye on the lives in the shadow of Tondo’s ever-engulfing port and finished her latest work IN THE CLAWS OF A CENTURY WANTING (2017), speaking for the silent from a small town near Manila. Jewel is an active participant in efforts to help develop Southeast Asian documentary through the SEA DocNet, a network of documentary professionals in Southeast Asia.
22 . 3 . 2019 (Fri): Dialogue with Tsai Ming-Liang
Born in Malaysia in 1957, Tsai Ming-Liang is one of the most prominent film directors of the new cinema movement in Taiwan. In 1994, his film VIVE L’AMOUR won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, establishing his status in international cinema. In 2009, FACE became the first film to be included in the collection of the Louvre Museum’s “Le Louvre s’offre aux cineastes.” It has since become the benchmark for films venturing into the world of art galleries. His STRAY DOGS (2013) was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 70th Venice Film Festival. In recent years, Tsai Ming-Liang has also moved on to installation art, showcased in exhibitions held in various cities including Taipei, Venice, Shanghai and Nagoya.
26 . 3 . 2019 (Tue): Dialogue with Bettina Perut & Iván Osnovikoff (Screening +Q&A)
Bettina Perut and Iván Osnovikoff have worked together since 1997 directing and producing documentaries. With seven feature films to their credit, their poetic journey is full of turning points and mutations that have accompanied the technological and cultural transformations of their time, challenging the most stable and conservative premises of what is meant by documentary filmmaking. Their work SURIRE (2015) is about the Surire salt flat located in the Chilean high plateau. As observation in visual language, it is a film that portrays this unique space in which natural beauty, human absurdity and cultural decline coexist.
27 . 3 . 2019 (Wed): Dialogue with Ljubomir Stefanov & Tamara Kotevska
Ljubomir Stefanov & Tamara Kotevska co-directed the documentary film HONEYLANDwhich won three awards at Sundance 2019 including World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary. Ljubomir Stefanov has over 20 years of experience in development and production of communication concepts and documentaries related to environmental issues and human development. He worked for clients such as UN agencies, EuroNatur and Swisscontact. Tamara Kotevska graduated in film directing from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts Skopje. She has 5-year experience in documentary and fiction film making as a freelance film director.
28 . 3 . 2019 (Thu): Dialogue with Philippe Bellaiche & Luke Lorentzen
Born in Paris, Philippe Bellaiche is an award-winning cinematographer. His latest production , which he also produced and co-directed, ADVOCATE features Lea Tsemel, a Jewish-Israeli lawyer who has represented political prisoners for five decades. Luke Lorentzen graduated from Stanford University in art history and film studies. He directed MIDNIGHT FAMILY which won U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Cinematography at Sundance 2019. The documentary tells the story of the Ochoa family which runs a private ambulance in Mexico City, competing with other for-profit EMTs for patients in need of urgent help.
Register now at http://www.hkdocumentary.com/dialogue-with-filmmakers-2019/
Dykes, Camera, Action! Film Screening and Q&A with Director Caroline Berler
Lesbians didn’t always get to see themselves on screen. But between Stonewall, the feminist movement, and the experimental cinema of the 1970s, they built visibility, and transformed the social imagination about queerness. Filmmakers Barbara Hammer, Su Friedrich, Rose Troche, Cheryl Dunye, Yoruba Richen, Desiree Akhavan, Vicky Du, film critic B. Ruby Rich, Jenni Olson, and others share moving and often hilarious stories from their lives and discuss how they’ve expressed queer identity through film.
For enquiries, please contact Ms. Christine Vicera at viceracn@hku.hk