Yellowing

The turmoil that has overtaken Hong Kong since 1997 has spawned a new generation of young, passionately committed activist filmmakers; they want to tell Hong Kong’s story with Hong Kong voices.

Hong Kong’s tense relationship with the mainland came to a head with the Umbrella Movement of 2014. A crowd of protesters stormed Civic Square on 27 September. The next day police shocked most residents by attacking the growing crowds with volleys of tear gas (a tactic that in 2019 became almost routine), provoking a cross-section of HKers to occupy major streets for almost six weeks.

One of the best documentaries to have emerged from the Umbrella Movement is Chan Tze-woon’s Yellowing. Out of 1,000 hours of footage, Chan crafted an artful document of ‘the real’, centred on portraits of students who organized a temporary cooperative and communitarian Hong Kong. Chan shows how cinema can capture the sights, sounds and emotions of this alternative world, framed and lit by passionate idealism.

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