Hong Kong cinema has long enjoyed international influence. Those days seem to be over, with authorities now censoring films that could threaten national security.
It was a feeling of despondency that pervaded director Mok Kwan-ling as she opened the email from the censorship committee.
Set up in June by the authorities, it scrutinizes all films and prohibits the release of those deemed to infringe the draconian national security law.
The filmmaker’s film is a 27-minute drama inspired by couples encountered during the huge and often violent pro-democracy protests of 2019.
It tells the story of a young woman who meets the parents of her boyfriend, arrested for having participated in the movement.
The latter’s mother is opposed to the movement, his father supports him.
The title of the film is Zap Uk, which in Cantonese, the most widely spoken language in Hong Kong, means “to clean the house”. It refers to the way in which the family and relatives of those arrested get rid of any compromising object.
The censorship committee ordered him to carry out 14 cuts, including a scene where the father says his son was a voluntary rescuer “only there to save people”.
She was also to change the title and mention that it included scenes constituting criminal offenses.
“I thought that this story was rather balanced in presenting the two points of view,” explains Mme Mok, in an interview with AFP.
“It turned out that one side in particular is not allowed to speak. “
Golden age
Rather than seeing her work emptied of its “substance and meaning”, she preferred to throw in the towel, and she predicts that “her film was the first, but will not be the last”.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Hong Kong was “Hollywood of the Far East”, with its international stars Bruce Lee, Chow Yun-fat and Wong Kar-wai.
Then, this golden age was eclipsed in part because of the rise of Chinese and South Korean cinema.
This did not prevent the city from maintaining a vibrant independent scene, and the directors, enjoying freedom of expression, could deal with any subject unlike their Chinese colleagues.
Those days are now over.
Beijing has set out to end all dissent in the financial hub, and cinema is not the only industry targeted.
A law is in the process of being passed by the Legislative Council (Legco), the parliament of Hong Kong, to extend censorship to all films already released and to strengthen penalties for infringement.
Kiwi Chow is one of five directors who helped Ten Years, an agonizing anticipatory film that imagines the Hong Kong of 2025, where freedoms and Cantonese culture would be repressed.
Premonitory, Ten Years, released in 2015, a year after the umbrella movement, has been a huge commercial success.
It is now unlikely that such a production can be achieved or even planned.
“They try to prevent our memory and our imagination from expressing themselves”, regrets the filmmaker.
Concert prohibited
Mr. Chow’s latest film, Revolution of our time, is a long documentary on the protests of 2019.
It was screened at the last minute this summer at the Cannes Film Festival, once the Chinese films were presented.
The director has abandoned any idea of seeing him on Hong Kong screens.
“If it is dangerous and risky for filmmakers to tackle social issues… then I will only be able to project it outside of Hong Kong. “
To protect himself, he sold the copyright and sent all the images overseas.
The production team and the people who worked on it have chosen to remain anonymous.
Some investors and actors have preferred to give up taking part in its productions, even apolitical ones. Police recently raided the screening of one of his romantic comedies.
In Hong Kong, fear of angering Beijing has long fueled cultural self-censorship, but the risk is now a reality.
At the beginning of September, Denise Ho, the Cantonese pop star, resolutely pro-democracy, was forced to cancel his concert, the place where he was to be held, citing problems in terms of “public security”.
For the director, this censorship will do little to change the desire of Hong Kong people to make their voices heard.
“The more things we ban in the name of national security, the less secure the state will be. “
Watch video
Reference-feedproxy.google.com