All My Sisters focuses for the most part of on two young women who happen to be the director's nieces (Film review)

  

Advertising for the 50th Hong Kong International 

Film Festival hanging on the railings of an overhead bridge  

 

All My Sisters (Austria-France-Germany-Iran, 2025) 

- Massoud Bakshi, director and co-producer (with five others)

- Part of the HKIFF's Documentary Competition program 

 

The first film of the 50th Hong Kong International Film Festival that I viewed 18 films ago was Woman and Child, an Iranian cinematic offering.  The final film of those I chose to watch also hails from Iran.  (All My Sisters is officially listed as four country co-production but is very recognizably an Iranian work.)  

 

To some extent, this is not something that's extraordinary as the Hong Kong International Festival has long programmed offerings from that Middle Eastern country (and, in fact, I'd go so far as to say that it's been a big champion of Jafar Panahi over the years.)  At the same time though, I figure this is also a reflection of Iran having been in the news in recent months (even before the Iran-USA War commenced); and the focus on Iranian women in the films (I think also of Past Future Continuous) selected for this edition of the HKIFF reflecting this.

 

Of course this is not to say that the likes of All My Sisters got selected by the Hong Kong International Film Festival as a "pity vote".  Because it genuinely is an interesting documentary work; one that is the result of filmmaker Massoud Bakshi training his camera on his two nieces for a couple of decades or so and then putting together home videos that, individually, can seem rather ordinary but collectively make for an interesting portrait of two sisters growing up and coming of age in Tehran under the rule of the Mullahs.

 

When we first see Mahya and Zahra in All My Sisters, they are sans hijab as they are still young -- and, as Massoud Bakshi stresses, in the company of family.  Even while it's clear that they are living in Iran, they still can seem like generic carefree preteens similar to girls in their age group in various other parts of the world as they happily listen to what's emanating from cassette players, playing with Barbies at home, and swinging on equipment in public playgrounds.

 

But at the first sign of puberty, the headscarves get put on.  Also, their religious grandmother starts trying to get them more interested in the Quran and Islam in general.  And there is a distinct and growing sense that their lives will be more restricted and less carefree.  (It would have been interesting for there to have been a parallel coverage of Mahya and Zahra's male contemporaries.  But the glimpses we see of the men as well as boys, who can go about their lives with much less covering, already says quite a bit.)

 

Something that is stressed more than once in All My Sisters is that what's shown in the film is shown with the consent of Mahya and Zahra.  Which makes it really surprising, then, that we see them being among the Iranians who take part in the "Women, Life, Freedom" protests.

 

At the same time, this helps makes the title of the film make sense.  In that, for a good part of it, I thought it would have been more appropriately entitled "My Two Nieces".  But when Mahya and Zahra are depicted and looked upon as representative Iranian women, than the chosen title of All My Sisters makes quite the political statement about Iranian women and society as a while indeed.

 

My rating for this film: 7.         

Past Future Continuous may not be the documentary it's presented to be (Film review)

  

One of the posters that was part of the HKIFF's 

poster exhibition at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre

 

Past Future Continuous (Iran-Italy-Norway, 2025) 

- Firouzeh Khosrovani and Morteza Ahmadvand co-directors, and co-scriptwriters (with Naghmeh Samini)

- Part of the HKIFF's Documentary Competition program 

 

This deceptively straightforward entry in this year's Hong Kong International Film Festival's Documentary Competition was the winner of an award at last year's International Documentary Film Amsterdam (IDFA).  It also is described as a documentary on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) website, Letterboxd and elsewhere I've looked.

 

But something seems amiss when there are three scriptwriters along with two co-directors (USA-based Firouzeh Khosrovani, and Moretza Ahmadvand, who resides in Tehran, Iran) listed for Past Future Continuous but none of them have the same name as Maryam, the involuntary immigrant from Iran now teaching at a university somewhere in the USA, whose story is told (in first person narrative form) in the film.    

 

To be sure, it would be understandable if Maryam is not the real name of someone who has resorted to having closed circuit television cameras installed in her family home in order to be visually connected with her parents living thousands of miles away in a country it no longer is safe for her to return to.  Very sadly, there are many people, including Hongkongers, who can only see beloved family members on TV, computer and smartphone screens these days.  

 

I just wish it would be more clearly outlined if Maryam is a real person's pseudonym or fictional character since there is a whole world of a difference between watching something is reality versus fiction, however based-on-reality the presented fictionalised situations are.  And the truth of the matter is that the nagging possibility that the people we see on screen for the bulk of Past Future Continuous are actors playing parts rather than the actual parents of someone who clearly loves and misses them can be distracting -- and detract from what actually would be a genuine tragedy unfolding on the screen; one involving a lonely couple -- who no longer have guests in their home, the way they used to do so in their younger, pre-Iranian Revolution days -- growing older, frailer and ill before our eyes.

 

Alternatively, if Past Future Continuous were indeed taken as a realist work of fiction rather than documentary, I actually would have been more tolerant of the repeated images of a fluttering white dove that feature in more than one part of the film and looked upon them as lyrically poetic rather than aesthetically indulgent!  Either way though, it speaks volumes that so much is left unsaid in this enigmatic work where so many things (and people?) may not be all that they (initially) seem.

 

My rating for this film: 6.0    

My 50th Hong Kong International Film Festival-ing kicks off with "Woman and Child" (Iran-France-Germany, 2025)! (Film review)

 

My tickets for the 50th Hong Kong International Film Festival!

 

Woman and Child (Iran-France-Germany, 2025)

- Saeed Roustaee, director and co-scriptwriter (with Azad Jafarian)

- Starring: Parinaz Izadyar, Payman Maadi, Soha Niasti, Maziar Seyedi, Fereshteh Sadr Orafaee, Hassan Pourshirazi, Sinan Mohebi

- Part of the HKIFF's Global Vision program 

 

A confession: I did not originally plan to attend a Hong Kong International Film Festival screening of Woman and Child.  Rather, a booking error resulted in my coming by a ticket.  But after seeing that it was directed by the same helmer as Leila's Brothers  (Iran, 2022), which I had viewed -- and got much out of -- at a previous edition of the HKIFF, I decided that the mistake might be a blessing in disguise.

 

Made after Saeed Roustaee had served a six-month prison sentence and a filmmaking ban imposed on him by the Iranian government -- for entering Leila's Brothers in the Cannes Film Festival! -- had been lifted, Woman and Child was made with the approval of the same regime.  Something that I find interesting since this drama centering on a widow with two children who lives with her mother and sister is one that yet another Iranian film that doesn't seem to sugercoat the lives of Iranian people, and their everyday struggles.

 

Mahnaz (portrayed by Parinaz Izadyar) is a hospital nurse who is being romantically pursued by a freelance ambulance driver named Hamid (who comes in the form of Saeed Roustaee film regular, Payman Maadi).  Although Hamid's pressuring her to get married to him causes some stress, Mahnaz seems to harbour genuine affections for him.  And, also, rather inexplicably, her son, Aliyah (played by Sinan Mohebi), who's the most annoying child I've seen in a film since Tan Chui Mui's Barbarian Invasion (Malaysia-Hong Kong-Mainland China, 2021)'s Yu Zhou.

 

So part of me was happy to see him being taken out of the picture fairly early into the movie.  And somewhat inexplicable to me that this development could leave Mahnaz so incredibly distraught that she literally faints at one point in the film.  And, also, becomes not only so emotionally numbed as well as upset that she neglects her much less annoying daughter, Neda (played by Arshida Dorostkar) as well as her own self and others: because, contrary to the title of the film, there's more than one child in the picture.

 

As the reviewer for Variety complained, "none of [Mahnaz's] actions makes the slightest sense". While I agree with that assessment, I'm less in agreement that it's not completely understandable.  Because, well, humans can be incredibly illogical, especially with regards to human relations and when powerful emotions are triggered.  Which certainly is in the case in Woman and Child. (Incidentally, I think that if the title hadn't already been taken, "Woman on a Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" might have been a good one for this movie!) 

 

How you feel about this will undoubtedly affect your overall assessment of this offering that, for me, was involving and actually pretty emotionally gripping throughout.  In addition, I felt that Mahnaz's multi-dimensional interactions with her mother (portrayed by Fereshteh Sadre Orafaee) and younger sister Mehri (played by Soha Niasti) that alternately help to relieve and heal but at other times further threaten to drive her over the edge are fascinating to behold.  

 

More than by the way, I think Woman and Child would have been a better film overall if it had focused more on the females in it as the males are, for the most part, its least watchable characters.  At the same time, the scenes in Aliyah's (all boys) school and the vocational school next door are also very well conceived and shot indeed.  So maybe it's more that the work would have been better served with less of Aliyah and Hamid in the picture; just as Mahnaz would have been better served with less of them in her life!

 

My rating for the film: 8.0  

The New Year That Never Came screened -- against the odds? -- at the Hong Kong International Film Festival (Film review)

  

Minutes before the Hong Kong International Film Festival screening

of a (supposedly sold out) screening of The New Year That Never Came 

 

The New Year That Never Came (Romania, 2024) 

- Bogdan Muresanu, director-scriptwriter

- Starring: Adrian Vancica, Nicoleta Hancu, Emilia Dobrin, Iulian Postelnicu, Mihai Calin, Andrei Miercure

- Part of the HKIFF's Global Vision program 

There are films that start off brightly but end up disappointingly.  There also are movies that take awhile to properly get going, but then just keep getting better and better; sometimes because they are ensemble works with a number of characters to get to know and resonate so much more after one starts caring for them, and the situations they find themselves in.  

 

Among the examples of the latter cinematic offerings is that which is my favourite film of all time.  As is The New Year That Never Came.  And it's indeed a tribute to this 2024 Romanian ensemble film that I am comparing it to Peking Opera Blues (Hong Kong, 1986), and favorably too!

 

Set in Bucharest in December 1989, the lives of six different people play out in ways that they could have scarce imagined just a few months, weeks or days before thanks to the end of Nicolae Ceausescu's rule being far closer to taking place than they thought possible.  Of course we who are aware of the history facts and/or were alive when the totalitarian state he presided over fell know this; but rather than making the dramatic proceedings boringly predictable, it actually becomes all the more interesting to see how bad things still were, and how scary they could be, pretty much up until the end for folks from various walks of life.    

 

The New Year That Never Came came out of director-scriptwriter Bogdan Muresanu's The Christmas Gift, a 2018 short film that "evoked a child’s-eye view of political terror via an inadvertent act of protest".  There's a nod in this feature length film to this by way of a child's letter to Santa Claus containing a line about "Uncle Nick" that causes his father, Gelu (portrayed by Adrian Vancica), to comically but also understandably freak out and worry that he will get into big trouble.

 

Gelu also happens to work in a TV studio where trouble brews too for TV show producer Stefan (played by Mihai Calin): professionally, by way of a leading actress in his latest production having suddenly defected and consequently needing to be replaced; and personally by way of his university student son, Laurentiu (essayed by Andrei Miercure), having plans of his own to flee the country. Gelu appears as well in the lives of Margareta (played by Emilia Dobrin), a disenchanted former Communist Party member, and her cop/secret service officer son, Ionut (portrayed Iulian Postelnicu), who appears cool at work but less so in the presence of the two main women in his life: his wife; and, especially, his mother.

 

A working class "nobody", Gelu turns out to be the one of the six characters in focus with the most consequential part to play in The New Year That Never Comes.  But Nicoleta Hancu, the actress playing an actress, it is who has the showiest role; as her Florina wears her heart on her sleeve and is, among other things, the most visibly affected by news of a massacre in another Romanian town that seeps into Bucharest by way of such as Radio Free Europe (hear that, Donald Trump?) and openly upset about having to do things she finds morally disagreeable, even reprehensible.

 

Seeing what the often fearful, upset and unhappy characters face and deal with in their fairly mundane lives makes the end scenes of this historical tragicomedy so very satisfying.  And if you have lived or are living through similar periods of repression in your home territory, they are downright inspirational as well as wonderfully cathartic. 

 

More than by the way, it's worth pointing out that The New Year That Never Came being screened at the Hong Kong International Film Festival this year can seem like a minor miracle.  This all the more so when reports have emerged in recent days that Iranian filmmaker and fest favorite Mohammad Rasoulof's The Seed of the Sacred Fig (France-Germany-Iran, 2024) appears to be the latest film to be banned in Hong Kong. 

My rating for this film: 9.0

Tatami is a very suspenseful and watchable mix of sports and politics (Film review)

  

Face to Face with Zar Amir at the 2024

Hong Kong International Film Festival :) 

 

Tatami (Georgia-U.S.A., 2023)

- Guy Nattiv (who co-scripted with Elham Erfani) and Zar Amir, co-directors

- Starring: Arienne Mandi, Zar Amir, Jaime Ray Newman, Nadine Marshall

- Part of the Hong Kong International Film Festival's Cinephile Paradise program

 

As I write this, the Georgian capital of Tblisi is in the news as it is rocked by mass protests by the country's citizenry against its government.  In Tatami, however, it is a politically neutral space which is playing host to a World Judo Championships that Iranian judoka Leila Hosseini (played by Arienne Mandi) aspires to win, even if this means her going up and defeating a friend who also is a sporting rival in Israeli judoka Shani Lavi (essayed by Lir Katz).

 

As those familiar with Middle East politics will know though, Iranian hardliners would not countenance the idea of someone from their country appearing next to someone from Israel in public.  So when a genuine possibility arises of Leila and Shani coming together in an upcoming round of the competition, pressure gets put on Leila from the Iranian regime to either pull out of the championship by faking an injury or deliberately losing to an opponent in an early round.

 

A true sportswoman (who cares far more about sport than politics, and for whom it's anathema to throw a match), Leila refuses to do so.  In so doing, she directly defies her long time coach (and former judo champion), Maryam (portrayed by Zar Amir), as well as Iranian government officials who have commanded Maryam to get her charge to do what they want.  And because the order to withdraw comes from the very top, this act of disobedience and defiance puts Leila and Maryam -- and perhaps even more so since they're in Iran: Leila's husband (played by Ash Goldeh), young son and parents, and Maryam's family -- in grave danger.

 

Based on and inspired by true occurences and events, Tatami is a nail-bitingly suspenseful drama with a a great story to tell.  It also is a very watchable sports actioner with emotionally gripping judo scenes that must have demanded much physically from its actresses, and are excitingly lensed (in black andd white -- a decision Zar Amir explained as wanting to emphasize the black-and-white view of the world held by the Iranian regime, and black and white outfits of the competing judoka -- by Todd Martin) and dynamically edited (by Yuval Orr).  

 

As improbable as it might sound, Tatami got this (re)viewer caring about whether Leila would win every single one of the judo bouts we see her compete in -- often utterly ferociously, like she was fighting for her very life on the tatami -- as well as whether she and her family, and also Maryam (who one can sees does care very much for Leila as an athlete as well as Leila as a person, and for Leila's and her own safety), will somehow be able to escape the wrath and/or grasps of the ayatollahs.  It helps that Arienne Mandi put in such a winning performance; ditto Zee Avi, whose character was more difficult to champion and like while even more conflicted.

 

More than by the way, Zar Amir not only co-starred and -directed but also was in charge of Tatami's casting and is one of the film's co-producers.  I think it also worth noting -- and I'm sure had some impact on the production -- that she knows what it's like to have incurred the anger of the Iranian authorities.  More specifically, she was banned from appearing in films and TV for 10 years, and sentenced to  to 99 lashes with a leather strap, by the Iranian court -- and only avoided these penalties by fleeing Iran.  She has lived in France since 2008.     

 

My rating for the film: 9.0

They Shot the Piano Player compares favourably to a number of Oscar-winning works! (Film review)

 

My life in Hong Kong: film festing, and way too ubiquitous 

police presence (See the police van on the 

other side of the road from the HKIFF advertising?) :S

They Shot the Piano Player (Spain-France-The Netherlands-Portugal-Peru-U.K., 2023)

- Fernando Treuba (who's also wrote the script) and Javier Mariscal, directors

- Voice actors: Jeff Goldblum, Tony Ramos, Abel Ayala, Roberta Wallach

- Part of the Hong Kong International Film Fetival's Animation Unlimited program 

 

The last animated movie I viewed prior to viewing this multinational offering was Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron (Japan, 2023).  I realise it's unfair to compare these two very different cinematic offerings -- but if I did so, I'd say that I actually liked They Shot the Piano Player better, and am surprised that it didn't even get nominated for the Animated Feature Film Oscar that the Studio Ghibli production won this year.

 

Speaking of Oscar nominated animated works: Persepolis (France-U.S., 2007) is one of three works I got to thinking of when viewing They Shot the Piano Player; with the other two being the non-animated Academy Award winners Searching for Sugar Man (2012) and Missing (1982).  For like Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi's work about a girl growing up in Islamic Revolution-era Iran, this offering from Fernando Teruba and Javier Mariscal is an animated docudrama -- in the latter case, about an American journalist trying to figure out what happened to a musical hero who appeared to have vanished into thin air, a la Searching the Sugar Man's Sixto Rodriguez, in a foreign, South American country similar to the fictional one that's the setting for Costa-Gavras' Missing.

 

It's 2010 and New York music journalist Jeff Harris (voiced by Jeff Goldblum) is planning on writing a book about the Brazilian bossa nova craze of the 1960s.  Early on in his research, he comes across a recording featuring the piano playing of Francisco Tenório Júnior and determines to learn more about this Brazilian musical talent.  

 

On research trips to Brazil, Jeff interviews illustrious Brazilian bossa nova musicians like Gilberto Gil, João Donato and Chico Buarque (voicing themselves in the movie) about their music, and memories of Tenório Júnior.  At some point, he changes the subject of his planned book to the piano player whose music, life and mysterious disappearance back in 1976 he has become well nigh obsessed with.  And eventually, he is able to piece together the tragic story of a much beloved musician and man who went missing while on tour in then dictator-ruled Argentina -- leaving behind a wife, children, mistress and many friends mourning his disappearance from their lives.

 

At one level, They Shot the Piano Player is a enthralling dramatic investigation into what happened to a piano player who look to have unwittingly got involved in South American politics, to his great detriment.  At another, it's a chilling indictment of totalitarian regimes and their state terrorism -- which, in South America, led, among other tragedies, to the "disappearance" tens of thousands of people, many, if not all, of them innocents.  At the same time, it's also a beautifully hand-drawn work that's a thoroughly affecting celebration of bossa nova, and the life of Tenório Júnior.

 

It is very much to its makers' credit that they attempted to do so much, and succeeded in doing so.  A feast for the eyes and ears, this work -- which also happens to be tri-lingual (English, Portuguese and Spanish) -- is also heart-breaking and heart-warming at different parts of its story -- which, it is worth emphasizing, is, at heart, non-fiction. (The fictional bit comes from the man who became obsessed with the story of Tenório Júnior -- so much so that he kept at it for some two decades! -- being not Jeff Harris but the film's co-director and scriptwriter, Fernando Trueba -- and instead of writing a book about the Brazilian musician, he made They Shot the Piano Player!)

My rating for this film: 9.0

A film from Japan and another from Iran viewed at the 2022 Hong Kong International Film Festival (Film review)

 

A familiar sight for me during this year's 

Hong Kong International Film Festival! :)

 

Forever a Woman (AKA The Eternal Breasts) (Japan, 1955)

- Part of the Hong Kong International Film Festival's Portraits of Women -- A Tribute to Tanaka Kinuya program

- Kinuya Tanaka, director

- Starring: Yumeji Tsukioka, Ryoji Hayama, Masayuki Mori, Yoko Sugi

 

After being introduced to the directorial efforts of Kinuya Tanaka by way of Love Letter (1953), I was looking forward to checking out more of her filmography and glad that I had bought tickets to HKIFF screenings of four of them.  And the second work by Japan's second female director that I viewed started off promisingly with scenes that were distinctly Japanese in some ways, yet also different from what many people expect of the East Asian country -- by way of its story being set in Hokkaido, which can come across the closest thing that the Land of the Rising Sun has to the American Wild/Frontier West due to it being a place where cows dot the landscape and winters are on the snowy side.

 

Forever a Woman centres on a woman named Fumiko Shimojo (played by Yumeji Tsukioka) who's story is based on renowned poet Fumiko Nakajo (who passed away just one year before this film's original release date).  First introduced in the movie as a loving mother (of two young children), its protagonist soon also is revealed, despite her efforts to be a good wife, to be unhappily married to a layabout whom she divorces soon after she finds that he's cheating on her.  And while he remarries soon afterwards, she doesn't.  Instead, Fumiko appears to have reserved her love for the most part for her children and her poetry, which she already was composing when she was married but only had them published after her divorce.  

 

Life as a divorced woman in Japan in the first half of the 20th century must surely not have been easy for anyone.  But Fumiko is able, at least, to count on the support of her loving mother and brother, and friends like Hori (Masayuki Mori), who she's revealed to have had a crush on, and his sweet teacher wife, Kinuko (Yoko Sugi), along with devotion of her two children.  Still, the fates really do seem to have it for her after she is found to have breast cancer, needs to get a double mastectomy and end up spending the rest of her days in a hospital waiting for death to come along.    

 

Understandably, then, Fumiko is hardly the happiest of characters.  At the risk of sounding like I have a hard heart though, I must admit to finding her way more self-pitying and mercurial than I would like; this particular since a very substantial chunk of Forever a Woman is devoted to depicting her suffering!  On the one hand, I applaud Kinuyo Tanaka (and scriptwriter Sumie Tanaka -- no relation) for taking on what must have been an unusual and daring subject, especially in 1950s Japan   On the other hand, I wonder whether the story would have been better served with a less indulgent and melodramatic treatment and less expectation that the film's audience would -- perhaps because its protagonist is based on a real life literary celebrity/personage -- of course be sympathetic to its main character; all of which resulted in the movie, particularly its latter portion, dragging on for longer than I found ideal!

  

My rating for the film: 6.0         

 

Leila's Brothers (Iran, 2022)

- Part of the Hong Kong International Film Festival's Cinephile Paradise program

- Saeed Roustaee, director and scriptwriter

- Starring: Taraneh Alidoosti, Saed Poursamimi, Navid Mohammadzadeh, Payman Maadi, Mohammad Ali Mohammadi, Farhad Aslani

Another day, another film about a headstrong woman who often feels put upon.  Leila (Taraneh Alidoosti) is a 40-year-old Iranian woman who's still unmarried and living with her parents.  She's also the chief breadwinner of her family despite having four brothers, three of whom are unmarried too.

 

One of her brothers, Alireza (Navid Mohammadzadeh), is introduced in an incredible sequence which takes part in the large factory in which he worked until chaos erupted after the workers were herded out of it soon after finding out that another month would be going by without their getting paid.  Their father, Esmail (Saeed Poursamimi), is also introduced in another impressive sequence that involves hundreds of extras.  (Leila's Brothers has a number of visually amazing sequences that must have taken so much effort to stage.)

 

Another brother, the conniving Manouchehr (Payman Maadi), gets introduced in another visually innovative way too.  But even though two other brothers -- wrestling fan Farhad (Mohammad Ali Mohammadi) and overweight janitor-family man Parviz (Farhad Aslani) -- don't get introduced in ways that are as eye-catching, rest assured that all of Leila's brothers are revealed to have distinct personalities along with Leila and their father.  And yes, this really is one of the absolute pluses of this multi-layered film that manages to be enthralling for all of its 169 minutes.

 

At one level, Leila's Brothers is a family drama about individuals trying to get ahead in life in a country that clearly has economic problems along with social(-economic) divides.  In order to do so, people form alliances and work together but also use, step on, fool and betray others, including family members.  Along the way, some people dream and others fantasize while still others are wont to stay pragmatic or even refuse to have much hope at all.  And throughout, this masterful cinematic offering is involving and absorbing, and gets under your skin for days (weeks even) after one's viewing of it.        

 

My rating for this film: 8.5

A Hong Kong film that will be screened at Cannes tomorrow (but probably never in Hong Kong)!

 

A now forbidden slogan scribbled on the wall back in 2019

 

I viewed a film this evening that contained the following quote: "When the press bows down to the authorities, the authorities will mistreat the citizens. This has always happened, worldwide, and it has happened to us."  Upon seeing this gripping account of bravura investigative journalism from Romania, I got to wondering how much longer it'll be before documentaries like Collective won't be allowed to be freely screened in Hong Kong.

 

Perhaps, in the interest of maintaining the appearance that Hong Kong's freedoms are intact even after the imposition of China's national security law for the Special Administrative Region, this will be for a good while yet for films like it which aren't made in Hong Kong and about Hong Kong.  On the hand, I think there is pretty much zero chances of a Hong Kong film that has the Cannes Film Festival has just announced as a late addition to this year's selection: with just the title of Kiwi Chow Kwun-kai's documentary alone bound to upset the powers that be here.   

 

This is a great pity; not least because, according to Variety's Patrick Frater, Revolution of Our Times -- yes, that's the title of the film in question -- "may be the most painstaking and detailed yet" of the documentaries that "chronicle the protests in Hong Kong and the brutal police crackdown".   (And of course I'd love to view this film in order to have my own opinion of it.  But since this is unlikely, I'm going to have to rely on others privileged to view the work to provide descriptions of it, including Screen Daily's Melanie Goodfellow, who has written about it being "both a macro overview of the events surrounding the protests, explaining both their geopolitical and historical context, and also present[ing] an up-close and personal picture of protesters on the frontlines of the demonstrations".) 

 

Additionally reported by both Frater and Goodfellow is that, in an emailed statement, Kiwi Chow expressed his "heartfelt gratitude to Cannes" for hosting the world premiere of his film (tomorrow) and went on to state that: "Hong Kong has been losing far more than anyone has expected. This good news will be a comfort to many Hongkongers who live in fear; it also shows that whoever fights for justice and freedom around the world, are with us! And Hongkongers are staying strong!"   

 

For those who didn't realize it, Kiwi Chow was one of the directors of 2015 short film anthology Ten Years.  Last July, another of that cinematic work's five helmers, Jevons Au, announced that he had left Hong Kong for Canada.  I've since been informed by an industry insider that two other Ten Years directors have also decided to go into exile within the past year.  

 

In contrast, Kiwi Chow has featured in articles published in recent weeks that make clear that he's still in Hong Kong and, also, that he's a member of the pro-democracy camp.  In a Reuters piece about "a scarred Hong Kong" earlier this month, the filmmaker talked about having taken out his camera out to film the protests and is quoted as stating the following: "The regime wants us to forget. I hope to use my camera to remember... We are resisting in our memories. We are resisting forgetfulness."

 

In another Reuters article, this one about people who still hope for democracy in Hong Kong, he stated that: "If I really get arrested, I will find comfort in the fact that I am being punished for carrying out justice. And so, I am at peace. I have already passed the challenge of fear."  Suffice to say that I consider him to be a truly courageous man and filmmaker, and sincerely hope that Hong Kong will not join the ranks of Iran in doing such as putting its filmmakers behind bars -- or even house arrest -- any time soon (because, yes, it's indeed a possibility -- something that tells you how much Hong Kong has changed in the past year or so).      

Hong Kong movies can now officially be deemed threats to national security and subject to censorship on these grounds!

 

The best years?  Not for Hong Kong, including its cinema, it's not!

 

It's now official: "Hong Kong's film censors have been ordered to ban any movies deemed to be supporting or glorifying acts that could endanger national security.  The government has gazetted changes to the Film Censorship Ordinance to enable the required changes, saying this is part of its duty under the Beijing-imposed national security law."

 

To be honest, I rather this come out and be an open thing rather than the past pussyfooting around where screening venues "couldn't be found" for certain films and such even while, in an ideal world, there wouldn't be any such film censorship at all.  And for those who think that all this began to happen just this year, remember how difficult it was for the Umbrella Movement documentaries (including Evans Chan's Raise the Umbrellas and Chan Tze Woon's Golden Horse award-nominated Yellowing) to be screened and Ten Years too years before the first anti-extradition bill protests took place, never mind the coming into effect of China's security law for Hong Kong last June 30th.

Put another way: those of us who've been paying attention have seen what happened today as but a matter of time.  Consider that, in recent months alone, what was supposed to be the first ever local screening at a commercial venue of Inside the Red Brick Wall was cancelled just hours before the screening of the critically acclaimed PolyU siege documentary was supposed to take place, one of the Hong Kong International Film Festival's scheduled opening films for this year was pulled from the festival and a decision was made to not air the Oscars on TV this year (for the first time in 52 years).   

 

Also, in what in hindsight can be seen as "a clear precursor to today's developments", the film censors issued a warning to the Hospital Authority Employees Alliance over the hospital workers union's screening of two films related to the 1989 June 4 crackdown ahead of the 32nd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.  So, really, the newly revised guidelines for local film censors simply formalize “red lines” that had become increasingly apparent in Hong Kong.

 

The way that one academic, Kristof Van den Troost of the Chinese University of Hong Kong -- whose current research topics include "Colonial Censorship in 1970s and 1980s Hong Kong, and Its Relationship to Local Crime Cinema" -- sees it, film censorship in Hong Kong is still some way short of what's seen in Mainland China. “[I]t’s not like the mainland where you have to do some pre-censorship, you have to get approval for your scripts, and then the film has to get censored again after it has been finished", he asserts.  

 

One can but hope that he's right.  And, also, that the censors won't go through Hong Kong cinema's back catalogue and start banning old films left, right and center.  In addition, I am hoping that contemporary Hong Kong filmmakers can and will respond to these film censorship threats (which, still are on the broad and vague side -- like the whole national security law shebang -- thus requiring the film censors to "intuit what will displease Beijing") in ways akin to those that the best of Iran's filmmakers have done so over the years.    

 

Amidst the justified fears (witness Far From Home, a film about political divisions in Hong Kong following the extradition bill protests, getting pulled from the Fresh Wave International Short Film Festival in the wake of the new censorship rules announcement), it is worth bearing in mind that Hong Kongers have shown remarkable -- and unexpected -- resilience in the past two years or so.  (And I'll include those of its filmmakers whose films make it clear that they love Hong Kong, of which there have been a number of examples in recent years).  Just two nights ago, signs asking Hong Kongers who want a free Hong Kong to keep the faith appeared atop Lion Rock.  At a time of great repression, this means a lot.       

 

Looking at the big picture, I have to wonder and ask: what kind of regime considers films to be possible national security threats?  Just last week, the individual who goes by the handle Pinboard over on Twitter observed that: "When police crack down on public dissent, people find subtler ways to express it. The cops can never win a game that pits them against the full creativity of a city like Hong Kong."  And I'd suggest that the following statement applies to the regime as a whole rather than just its armed enforcers: "Under full repression, the dissent will become so subtle it will tip the oppressors into paranoia".

 

And while paranoia is a dangerous thing (including in opponents), another of Pinboard's points rings true too: "The joy of successful subversion, of getting the authorities to play themselves, of subtext and double meanings, finding uncensorable ways to express dissent, all these school-like kicks against authority are no substitute for freedom, but they make the lack of it more tolerable."  The possibility does exist that this "latest move might also spark more creativity in self-expression – contrary to the authorities’ intention."  At the very least, don't count Hong Kong cinema out yet -- and, if you actually care about it, now's the time to support it rather than (continue to prematurely) lament its death!  

Abbas Kiarostami educates with First Case, Second Case, Tributes to the Teachers and Two Solutions for One Problem (Film review)

Information panel for the Abbas Kiarostami films

I viewed at this year's HKIFF

 

First Case, Second Case (Iran, 1979) + Tributes to the Teachers (Iran, 1977) + Two Solutions for One Problem (Iran, 1975)

- Part of the Hong Kong International Film Festival's Restored Classics program 

- Abbas Kiarostami, director and scriptwriter

 

For some reason that I can't fathom, the people in charge of this program decided to screen the three Abbas Kiarostami offerings that make up it in reverse-chronological order as well as from lengthiest to shortest in terms of their running time.  Because I think it makes more sense the other way around, I'm going to review the films in order of when they were made -- beginning with the 5 minute film made in 1975 that brought to mind a later film that the Iranian filmmaker would make: Where's the Friend's House (1987).  

 

Like that feature length work that I reckon is one of Kiarostami's best, Two Solutions for One Problem's story involves a young boy, a classmate and the classmate's exercise book.  In this short film, the exercise book is torn and two scenarios are presented as to what happens when it gets returned by one boy to its owner.  In just five minutes, Kiarostami manages to infuse quite a bit of humor and also didacticsm into the story.  Truly, if I were to know him from just this one work alone, I'd have already marked him down as quite the cinematic talent!

 

Continuing with the educational theme: The 17-minute-long Tribute to the Teachers is exactly that.  A pretty straightforward documentary which features interviews with various schoolteachers, its primary interest for me was to catch glimpses of what life was like in Iran pre-Islamic Revolution.  Since the bulk of the Iranian films I've viewed were produced after the Iranian Revolution, it was novel for me to see Iranian women with their hair uncovered in public settings and I must admit to also being moved to wonder whether they are able to be as confident, vocal and assertive as they are shown in this 1977 film.  Hopefully, this can be so for contemporary female teachers in Iran.  For in this short offering, some of the personalities who really stood out -- for their charisma as well as devotion to the teaching profession -- were female rather than it just being the men who were dominant.

 

First Case, Second Case is another Kiarostami film with an educational focus.  Like for Two Solutions for One Problem, the director stages two contrasting outcomes for one story: in this instance, involving a teacher irked by the noise being made when he's drawing a diagram on the blackboard who proceeds to kick seven students out of his class and tell them they can only return if he's told who was the troublemaker.  The first scenario involves one student deciding to name the culprit; the second scenario involves all of the students refusing to do so.

 

Unlike the short film, however, the movie doesn't end after the presentation of the alternative scenarios.  Instead, we then see -- much like in Tribute to the Teachers -- a number of different interviewees (women as well as men) giving their opinions on the matter.  In this case, they include the fathers of the seven boys -- who appear to differ quite a bit in class and education levels, and include at least one military man -- but also a range of authority figures, ranging from education ministry officials to religious ones and also involves leaders of various political parties!  And, expectedly, their opinions range pretty widely -- not only regarding what was the right thing for the boys to have done but the reasons why they thought what they did about what the boys should have done, and the teacher too.

 

I have to admit: the "talking heads" part of First Case, Second Case goes on for quite a bit and is visually not all that exciting; so it can be difficult to keep one's attention fully focused on what's going on and even keep one's eyes fully open for a time.  But somewhere along the line, one realizes that far more is going on than just a discussion of classroom discipline -- for the discussion goes so deep philosophically that it also becomes downright political! 

 

More than incidentally, Kiarostami began working on the film when the Shah was still on the throne in Iran. Shooting was nearly complete when the Iranian Revolution occured.  Kiarostami then took the decision to add post-Revolution officials into the mix while retaining his interviews with pre-Revolution officials.  The film was screened at least once in Iran but after the premiere, it disappeared from view for decades until June 2009 when it reappeared and became widely distributed online! 

 

From the story of its production and lack of availability alone, you'd know that First Case, Second Case is one interesting film.  And when you know the context in which he was working, you have to marvel at Kiarostami's daring as well as genius: because what he got out of the mouths of a good number of the people interviewed in the film is dynamite -- specifically, a discussion that addresses key issues to do with revolution (i.e., reasons for rebellion but also attempts to counter it) and society (should one opt for solidarity or betrayal, physical freedom or moral integrity?) itself.                 

 

My ratings for the films: 7 for Two Solutions for One Problem; 7.5 for Tribute to the Teachers; and 8 for First Case, Second Case

Hong Kong guards against the Wuhan coronavirus as it continues spreading like wildfire elsewhere, including Malaysia

The kind of anti-infection measures that people in other parts

of the world might think excessive even now... 

...but which I do find assuring to see when out in Hong Kong

And I don't know what's the situation at your local bank 

but these kind of measures have been par for the course

in this part of the world for some weeks now!

I was in Causeway Bay yesterday evening and found it more crowded than it had been in days, weeks, even months. I'm not sure whether it's because people collectively felt a need to venture out after suffering cabin fever (or, perish the thought, complacency has set in in the midst of the effectively congratulory articles that have come out in recent days about Hong Kong's having limited the spread of the Wuhan coronvirus within its borders), on account of their having stayed at home so much these past few months.  In any case, I must admit to finding it all a bit offputting -- even while realizing that, yes, I was contributing to the numbers out on the streets, etc.!  

At the same time though, I did feel assured by the high percentage of people wearing masks -- and also by the other preventative measures in place. And while some might dismiss the likes of the ready availability of hand sanitizers and the sanitization of carpets and escalator hand rails as cosmetic, they do make me feel safer in Hong Kong than I'd be in a whole lot of other parts of the world right now.  

For the record:  Hong Kong's total number of confirmed Wuhan coronvirus cases rose to 145 with four more having been added to the tally today and five the day before.  But I reckon it's saying a lot that its most recent cases of infection by the Wuhan coronavirus have involved people who had recently travelled outside of Hong Kong (including to Britain and USA).

The last time I looked at the worldometer's Coronavirus page (i.e., a few minutes ago), the USA had 3,083 confirmed Wuhan coronavirus cases (2,967 of them active) and 60 deaths while the UK had 1,140 confirmed cases (1,101 of them active) and 21 deaths from the deadly disease.  Those numbers may still be dwarfed by those of Mainland China (with over 80,000 confirmed cases of infection and 3,199 deaths), Italy (with over 21,000 confirmed cases and over 1,440 deaths) and Iran (with close to 14,000 cases and more than 720 fatalities) -- but a sure sign that what's happening in Britain and the USA is concerning people can be seen in the Hong Kong authorities having decided to add those two countries to its list of territorities that people travelling from will be required to be quarantined after they arrive in Hong Kong.  

Another country whose Wuhan coronavirus trajectory is alarming me is Malaysia, whose total number of confirmed cases of infection hit 428 today after the country recorded its biggest daily jump in cases today with 190 new positive test results.  What makes things particularly upsetting to me is that the bulk of these cases are linked to a cluster involving a religious gathering of some 16,000 people at a mosque in Kuala Lumpur that took place from February 28th to March 1st -- close to two months after word had got out that a mysterious disease was infecting a hell of a lot of people over in Mainland China, and after the Wuhan coronavirus already had infected people in Malaysia along with a good number of other countries globally!

As things stand, only 4,492 of that ijtimak tabligh's Malaysian participants have been identified; of which just 3,206 of them have been tested.  This means that there's a lot of people to be found and tested -- and, in all likelihood, test positive -- still.  Disturbing as well is the realization that some 1,500 of the participants hail from other countries in the region.  Put another way: The participants and organizers of that event look to have contributed to an international wave of infections -- and, with it, no small amount of suffering and possibly some deaths -- and endangered goodness knows how many people by their willful ignorance.  They should be ashamed of themselves, and so much more.  

Something else I can't help but think and rue is that maybe this all would not have happened if the Pakatan Harapan government were still in place.  After all, it had a health minister widely adjudged to be doing a great job.  Instead, alas, Malaysia currently has a backdoor government that doesn't have much credibility; this not least because it is riddled with "Malay first" "nationalists" (racists), hardline Islamicists and suspect individuals from the discredited regime of the infamously corrupt Najib Razak, and one of its head's first moves was to postpone the next sitting of the Malaysian parliament from early March to May 18th! 

Big names get the attention but it's worth looking at Hong Kong too!

Even amidst the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic,

life's a beach for some, it seems!

 The sense one gets when in Repulse Bay is that

the (super) rich are different... 

Outside the Hong Kong Country Club though is a reminder

that the Wuhan coronavirus strikes the rich too

Before this week, Hong Kong had a grand total of two recorded deaths from the Wuhan coronavirus.  But just four days after news came of the territory's third fatality from this deadly disease has come that of Hong Kong's fourth death from the coronavirus that now has spread to over 131 countries (with the East African countries of Ethiopia and Kenya being among those reporting their first confirmed cases of infection today).

The city's confirmed number of Wuhan coronavirus infections also rose by three today to 134, with a 16-month-old baby being among the latest cases.  (So, no, that which really is a more severe disease than the flu doesn't just infect elderly people though people over 50 years of age do appear to be at higher risk than younger ones.)  

Another noteworthy, and disturbing, finding about Hong Kong's three latest cases is that they all were found to be infected on their return to Hong Kong from visits to Europe -- as were the toddler's parents (whose infections were confirmed in the past two days and who appeared, as with their child, to have been infected by a fellow passenger on their flight back from London).  Put another way: it looks like Hong Kong has experienced the "reverse infections" from another continent that China has voiced fears of happening to it now that the coronavirus looks to be spreading much faster in the West than Asia.

Interestingly, as the coronavirus has spread outside of East and Southeast Asia, it has infected the kind of people who many would have thought would be less susceptible to fall victim to serious fast-spreading diseases.  Iran's vice president and two ministers have been infected by the Wuhan coronavirus.  So have a number of Western government officials (including Britain's health minister and Australia's home minister).  

Probably the biggest "name" thus far to have tested positive for the Wuhan coronavirus is Hollywood actor Tom Hanks.  On the same day (yesterday) that he and his wife, singer-actress Rita Wilson, made public their having been infected, two NBA players -- including the idiot who tried to make fun of the global pandemic by touching every single microphone and recorder in the media room he gave an interview just this Monday -- were also announced as having tested positive for the coronavirus, and the basketball league they play[ed] in announced the suspension of its season.     

Today, it was the turn of the English Premier League to announce its suspension -- tentatively "just" until next month -- after news came that Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta and Chelsea player Callum Hudson-Odoi had tested positive for the Wuhan coronavirus, with a number of other players currently undergoing tests as well.  Oh, and the Canadian prime minister's wife also has been infected by this coronavirus, with her spouse probably being the first head of government to be obliged to work from home and self-isolating as a result of this coronavirus!

Maybe the news of these personalities testing positive for the Wuhan coronavirus will get people realizing that "anyone" (i.e., not just Asians or those of Asian ancestry) can come down with it. Maybe not.  Perhaps it will get some people finally realizing that the Wuhan coronavirus is a serious deal.  Perhaps not. 

Something that is being really clear to me in recent days is how much of the world outside of East Asia appears to not have been paying that much serious attention to what has been happening in this part of the world since as early as November last year and was known to be taking place in Mainland China by certain members of the medical community by late December (despite the Communist Chinese authorities trying to suppress information about it for weeks).  Belatedly though, articles have appeared in various Western media essentially urging people and administrations in the West to learn from the likes of Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan about how to deal with the Wuhan coronavirus.  

To be sure though, as can be seen from the additional fatality and cases of infection announced today, Hong Kong is not out of the woods yet -- and most certainly cannot afford to be complacent.  Still, I do believe that Hong Kongers -- even if not their government -- have been far more "clued in" as to what's been happening, and for a while, and, frankly.  Consequently, they managed to dodge a big bullet early on and, hopefully, will be able to do so for as long as is needed -- which, sadly, is looking like it will be for many more months, especially if idiots continue doing what they have been doing to help its spread.