Cine-tracts/Demonstrations in support of the Defence of Diaoyu Islands in Hong Kong/Seventeen (episode 8): Art and Life(M+ Screenings: Beneath the Pavement)

Movie Name: Ciné-tracts
Language: Silent
Duration: 30min
Director: Anonymous

Story: The Ciné-tracts are a collection of two- to three-minute silent films made by French directors (including Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker, and Alain Resnais) who chose an anonymous, collective approach to authorship. Shot with a Rostrum camera to animate still images (most, if not all, of which were taken in May 1968), each film is a mini-essay to be considered as a direct cinematic and revolutionary intervention.

Movie Name: Demonstrations in Support of the Defence of Diaoyu Islands in Hong Kong
Language: Silent
Duration: 15min
Director: Chiu Tak-hak, Law Kar

Story: This short film documents impassioned young faces, slogans, and cityscapes of early 1970s Hong Kong. Chiu Tak-hak and Law Kar’s handheld camera footage—edited by Law Kar with handwritten intertitles—chronicles five days in April 1971, when protesters gathered at various locations around the city to voice stirring opposition to the Okinawa Reversion Agreement. The agreement, in which the United States would cede administration of the Diaoyu Islands to Japan, contradicts China’s competing claim to the islands.

Law Kar (Hong Kong, born 1941) is a renowned writer, historian, and film scholar specialising in Hong Kong and transnational film histories. Trained at Rome’s Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, Law has made experimental films and has worked in institutions such as TVB, the Film Culture Centre, the Hong Kong International Film Festival, and the Hong Kong Film Archive.

Chiu Tak-hak is a pioneer in Hong Kong experimental film. He worked as a set designer for the Cathay Organisation and also directed six independent films during the 1960s and 1970s. Since 1972, Chiu has lived in Paris, where he works as a painter.

Movie Name: Seventeen (episode 8): Art and Life
Language: Cantonese(English subtitle)
Duration: 39min
Director: Yim Ho

Story: An episode of the TVB television series Seventeen, ‘Art and Life’ presents a sobering chapter in the lives of a group of socially conscious young people who have recently returned to Hong Kong after studying abroad. A portrait of young intellectuals as they confront disillusionment amid the realities of contemporary society, Yim Ho’s breezy, melancholic ode to life in the arts is a subtle reference to the real-life founding of a locally influential arts magazine, and retraces the imprints left by youth-led social movements in Hong Kong.

Yim Ho (Hong Kong, born 1952) is a leading figure in the cinema of the Hong Kong New Wave. After completing his film studies in London, he joined TVB in the mid-1970s as a director and scriptwriter before moving into feature filmmaking. He is known for films such as his debut feature The Extra (1978), Homecoming (1984), and the award-winning Red Dust (1990).