Hong Kong Film Festival UK 2022

The inaugural HKFF (UK) took place between 19th and 27th March 2022 in London, featuring 16 titles including 6 documentaries, 5 feature films, and 5 shorts. The screenings also took place across 3 other cities in the UK – Manchester, Bristol, and Edinburgh.

The theme of this 2022's HKFF (UK) was Rupture and Rebirth. It featured pieces that portray the city’s recent ruptures: resistance, brutality, traumas and reflections experienced by the people of Hong Kong. Since 2019, mass protests have erupted and evolved into a social movement, drawing worldwide attention. Courageous filmmakers risked their lives to shed light on the new situation through both documentaries and features. We hope to safeguard these banned yet precious films from the powers that be, by projecting them on a multitude of screens to keep them alive and vivid in our memories.

Paradoxically, this unprecedented Rupture had breathed new life into Hong Kong cinema — unveiling hidden social perspectives and delving into complex and self-reflective narrations. This paradox marked the city’s path of cultural Rebirth and awakening from its deep rupture and trauma. These invigorating works were the poetry at the heart of history, the humorous touch that belies our nostalgia, the polemic behind the struggles of marginalised people, the incisive investigation into a metropole’s changing values — this was a sound journey that the filmmakers and the audience are heading to and in quest of, the new self, the new us, illustrated through the world of moving images — revolving doors of creation and rebirth.