A key player of the Hong Kong New Wave, Ann Hui studied English and Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong before receiving her film education abroad at the London Film School. As a prolific filmmaker, she has produced more than 20 films including The Secret (瘋劫), Song of the Exile (客途秋恨), Summer Snow (女人四十), The Way We Are (天水圍的日與夜), A Simple Life (桃姐) and Our Time Will Come (明月幾時有). Her films won major prizes at the Hong Kong Film Awards and Golden Horse Awards. She was honoured for her lifetime accomplishments at the 2012 Asian Film Awards.

Ann Hui was recently awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 77th Venice International Film Festival (2 September – 12 September, 2020). The decision was made by the Board of Directors of the Biennale di Venezia upon recommendation of the Director of the Venice Film Festival, Alberto Barbera. Accepting the award, Ann Hui declared “I am so happy to receive this news and honored for the award! So happy that I feel I cannot find the words. I just hope everything in the world will turn better soon and everybody can feel again as happy as I am in this moment.”

To read more on the work of Ann Hui, visit her page on the HK Women Filmmakers website.

"Comparative Literature is where I learnt to see the world"

NORA LAM 林子穎 (BA 2017) is an independent filmmaker and the co-founder of Outfocus Productions. Her documentary feature Road Not Taken(未竟之路) (2016) had over 20 overseas and local festival screenings. Lost in the Fumes(地厚天高)(2017) won Special Jury Prize at the Taiwan International Documentary Festival 2018 and was one of the winners in Films of Merit at Hong Kong Film Critics Society Award 2018.

SEEKING SOLACE

Unlike the chaotic intensity depicted in many youth films, life as a teenager is monotonous and repressed for Nora. She indulged in the boundless world of literature and cinema, becoming particularly drawn to the twentieth-century literature, period dramas and LGBT cinema. These works, however, didn’t allow a complete escape, for they portray a world that is distanced yet familiar. “They transport you to another world, but eventually pull you back to your world. They give you a new perspective; a new way of understanding a world you cannot change.”

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To read more on the work of Nora Lam, visit her page on the HK Women Filmmakers website.

After completing an undergraduate degree at HKU majoring in Comparative Literature in 2007, Doris further pursued her study and completed a Master of Fine Arts degree in Film, TV and Digital Media in Hong Kong Baptist University in 2013. In 2015, Doris’s film project The Travel Diary (環島日記) has been selected for Taipei Golden Horse Film Project Promotion. The film project, later renamed New Turn (轉彎之後), produced by Wei Te-sheng (魏德聖) and directed by Doris, was filmed in 2016. Doris is also a director of short films, music videos and commercials.

I have been making movies and writing film scripts for the past 24 years. When I first approached cultural studies in 2000, I was really blown away. I have learnt to question everything I see and everything I once believed in. The absence of truth kind of set me free. It is quite amazing. I have even applied some of the cultural studies theories to several of my film scripts.

To read more on the work of Aubrey Lam, visit her page on the HK Women Filmmakers website.