Tribute to Ann Hui

Ann Hui has become an integral part of contemporary Hong Kong cinema. The prominent filmmaker has been a part of local cinema since the mid-seventies and continues to make inspiring films about socially sensitive issues. It is therefore a great honor for us that Ann Hui is coming to Prague with a retrospective and a moderated Master Class. As part of the Tribute to Ann Hui section, we will show four films representing four phases of her work. Boat People (1982) is perhaps her best-known work, an explicit and thought-provoking (post-)war drama about Vietnam and, metaphorically speaking, Hong Kong in the 1970s. And since Boat People invites discussion, a moderated Master Class organized by the festival and the film education platform Cinergy will follow, in which Ann Hui will explain her creative process and choice of subject matter and reminisce about iconic films. Her film from the 1980s perfectly illustrates how well Ann Hui can explore political issues.

With the film The Stunt Woman (1996), in which the fantastic Michelle Yeoh struggles with the status of women in Hong Kong society at the time, we enter the 1990s. In addition to the dialogue about Hong Kong in the nineties, The Stunt Woman also offers an insight into the film industry of the time and the irreplaceable work of stuntwomen and stuntmen. A more contemporary work is A Simple Life (2011), in which we see the unforgettable interplay between Andy Lau and Deanie Ip. This touching work is not only an example of Ann Hui’s precise dramatic work, but also the culmination of her collaboration with producer Roger Lee, whose real-life personal experiences are interpreted in the film. The latest work in the Tribute to Ann Hui section is the period melodrama Love After Love (2020). It combines the contemporary work of Ann Hui with a sophisticated genre story based on the novel by writer Eileen Chang.

Within four films and a Master Class, we will look at various milestones in Ann Hui’s work and present her in four different decades. And in each of these films, the director/author/creator asks herself various and extremely thought-provoking questions.

The second section of the festival is a traditional look at contemporary Korean film called Korea Now! Within this section, we will present two playful projects. Director Ryoo Seung-wan plays with the heist movie genre in the entertaining Smugglers (2023) – a summer blockbuster that will leave you breathless. Concrete Utopia (2023) is a representative of the small but high-quality genre of Korean disaster films. The post-apocalyptic drama combines a social thriller with an ecological disaster film and keeps the audience on the edge of their seats until the very last second.

The last two films of the 19th Filmasia Festival are Special Screenings. We are delighted to screen the Czech and Chinese co-production Till Love Do Us Part (2022), in which director Ran Li explores the life of a woman caught between two men, two countries and two different lives. At the very end of this edition, we’ve teamed up with Future Gate Festival to present the latest Japanese kaiju Godzilla Minus One (2023). The latest blockbuster continues the tradition of Japanese monster movies featuring Godzilla and you’ve definitely got something to look forward to!