Hong Kong On Screen (HKOS) is proud to present the first ever Hong Kong On Screen Film Festival (HKOSFF). Running April 28-30, 2023 at the Starlight Whittier Village Cinemas, it will showcase 8 feature films, 2 documentaries, 8 shorts curated from a global open call for submissions, and a 20th anniversary tribute of the passing of HK icons Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui.
Founded in 2022 in response to the ongoing political upheaval in Hong Kong and China's encroaching presence in the international city-state, HKOS is a collective of academics, artists, students, and concerned global citizens dedicated to preserving the voice of freedom from Hong Kong and to promote its local culture through cinema, cultural exchange, and dialogue.
Since its inception, HKOS has proactively engaged in and/or supported a variety of cultural programming in order to serve the Hong Kong diaspora in the Greater LA area and beyond. This has included a special screening series of recent HK independent films, many of them banned from screening at home, at local indie cinemas and university campuses (USC, UCLA), the HKOS podcast and blog, which platform filmmaker, industry, academic interviews, community news, and provide coverage of industry events, among other information of interest to fostering a global Hongkonger perspective. Recent highlights include Ying e Chi's Keep Rolling Project, Global Hong Kong Studies @ UC's Film Series, “Hong Kong: Lost or Found,” and the YouTube channel launch of English Cantopop.
Like many Asian diasporic communities in the US, the past three years of the COVID-19 pandemic with its escalating anti-Asian hate and rhetoric have been an equally challenging time for many Hongkongers, whose unique political predicament and worldview are often misunderstood by those in the West, many of whom do not make the distinction between the special administrative region's rule of law and democratic traditions and that of Mainland China.
This inaugural film festival aspires to map out these distinctions for a general filmgoing public through its engagement with a cross-section of contemporary HK independent films from drama, thriller, action, rom-com, to documentary, all shot on-location and primarily in the Cantonese dialect, invited guest speakers and area studies experts, and an opening and closing reception.
Some HKOSFF 2023 highlights include:
- 20th Anniversary Tribute to HK icons, Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui (Giants Tribute)
- Screenings of director Stanley Kwan's HK New Wave classic, Nomad (1982) and Rouge (1987), director Wong Kar-Wai's Days of Being Wild (1990), and director Johnnie To's cult favorite, The Heroic Trio (1993) w/ invited guest speakers and area studies experts. Through these select films, we hope to honor their indelible contributions to the entertainment industry in Hong Kong and global cinema culture.
- LA premieres or showcases recent HK films, The Narrow Road, The Sparring Partner, and The Sunny Side of the Street.
- A showcase of both curated and pre-feature shorts selected from a global open call for submissions, many from emerging and/or student filmmakers.
- A virtual reality exhibition, “Return to Lee Theatre VR,” from the Hong Kong XR Museum.
In addition to this LA-based festival, we have partnered up with the Hong Konger Club in San Diego and Bay Area Hong Konger Community to put on two satellite HKOSFFs in tandem. Please check the festival website for those program schedules.
The full festival line-up will be announced very shortly.
Please visit https://www.hkonscreen.org/ for the latest information.
