Indiescape HK and the Post-Handover Film World

Indiescape Hong Kong and the Post-Handover Film World
Feature Topic in the journal Ex-position
Guest editor, Kenny NG (Hong Kong Baptist University)

“Independent cinema” in Hong Kong has gained much currency both in academia and in film production and reception circles since the 1997 handover. Despite the fact that the term itself is frequently invoked in critical discourse and film festival programming, the meanings and contours of independent cinema as it is practiced in Hong Kong remain a matter of debate, except for the general consensus that being “independent” in moviemaking confers a disposition of distancing from the mainstream film industry in terms of styles, genres, modes of production and exhibition, financing, or public reception. Independent filmmakers can be bona fide auteurs who have greater control over the subject matter and stylistic choices of their works compared with their mainstream counterparts. Still, creative autonomy is never absolute and always comes with a cost. Filmmakers have to play by the rules of the emerging habitus of independent cinema, while the dynamic and ambivalent exchanges between independent and mainstream cinema are constantly at play in Hong Kong when an independent filmmaker (or film) enters mainstream production and circulation.

This special topic features articles that examine independent cinema in the context of post-handover Hong Kong, and attempt to reinvent or interrogate the notion of Hong Kong Indiescape.

All the articles are available at the journal’s website:

http://ex-position.org/?page_id=2055

FEATURE TOPIC: Indiescape Hong Kong and the Post-Handover Film World

Guest Editor Kenny K. K. Ng
Introduction: Hong Kong Independent Cinema in the Post-Handover Era
Kenny K. K. Ng

The Ten Years Phenomenon: Promises and Perils of Politically Engaged Cinema in Hong Kong
Vivian P. Y. Lee

Looking through My Fly’s-Eye View: Chan Tze-woon’s Documentary of the 2014 Umbrella Movement
Kenny K. K. Ng

Of Activism and the Land: Ecological and Utopian Visions of Post-Handover Hong Kong Documentaries
Winnie L. M. Yee

Too Much Reality? Reflections on the Educational-Observational Film World of Tammy Cheung and Augustine Lam
Mike Ingham

A Turn to the Politics of Place in Hong Kong Independent Documentaries
Enoch Yee-lok Tam

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