Hong Kong women filmmakers' visions of the 21st century

Abstract

Hong Kong women, undeniably, have made significant contributions to Chinese cinema as producers, directors, scriptwriters, editors, designers, performers and in many other capacities behind as well as in front of the camera. As Chinese cinema undergoes enormous changes at the beginning of the new millennium, it seems apposite to reflect on Hong Kong women filmmakers’ unique vision of the transition of the territory from a colony to a special administrative region (SAR) of the People’s Republic. Sensitive to questions of gender, they have displayed a particularly acute understanding of the shifting nature of identity more generally as Hong Kong has changed sovereignty, the global economy has transformed class alignments and labor roles, and culture has become more global—multi-ethnic, multi-national, and multi-lingual. They are cognizant of working in an environment characterized by temporal dislocations—“post” modern, “post” Fordist, “post” feminist, “post” Handover, “post” colonial—and they approach their subject matter with that in mind. While some filmmakers may be exhausted by working in the aftermath of all these supposedly “terminal” moments, Hong Kong women seem to rise from the ashes with insistent visions, novel techniques, and enormous creative energy. They have been leaders in the innovative use of the medium to explore subjectivity, memory, narrative form, character psychology, and domestic space, and this presentation highlights connections between the personal, the political, and the aesthetic to give their work the attention it truly deserves. This presentation focuses on the visionary aspect of two films by Clara Law, Like a Dream (2009) and Red Earth (2010) to explore the nature of Chinese women’s identities in the new millennium. Copyright © 2014 Envisioning Chinese Cinemas in the 21st Century: The Taiwan Symposium.