Visible Secrets UK tour launched at a gala screening in London on Mon 2 November, and will visit venues across the country, facilitated by the Independent Cinema Office.
Check the "UK Tour" section for updates, on the left hand side of this page.
A UK-first season of new films, including a focus on the contemporary films of award winning director Ann Hui, curated by Sarah Perks, Programme & Engagement Director at Cornerhouse and Andy Willis, Reader in Film Studies at University of Salford.
From the auteur to the avant-garde, Hong Kong cinema has a strong tradition of women working behind the camera. Perhaps surprisingly, most of their work has rarely been seen in the UK. Intended to address this glaring omission, Visible Secrets: Hong Kong’s Women Filmmakers, will be a unique programme of films, events and special guests designed to celebrate the imagination and vibrancy of these directors and their work.
The programme introduces astounding new directors including Yan Yan Mak, Barbara Wong, Aubrey Lam and Tsang Tsui Shan; covers documentaries and short films, and showcases the contemporary films of Ann Hui.
In addition, to coincide with the season, the co-programmers have edited the autumn edition of the respected magazine Film International focusing on Hong Kong cinema with an extended article on Visible Secrets, now available to buy from our Bookshop.
SEASON REVIEW:
The programme is an excellent one and offers a good and rare opportunity for people in the UK to see work by Hong Kong women filmmakers. The films are very well chosen and they cover a comprehensive range of recent output, including documentaries, which will be quite attractive to contemporary audiences. Particularly noteworthy is the mini-retrospective of Ann Hui, who remains the most outstanding of Hong Kong's female directors. Her recent work continues to grow from strength to strength. In Hui's work we see a commitment to cinema but more than that, we see her immersion in the social world of her characters and her attempts to uncover transcendental secrets about human beings, making these secrets visible before our very eyes, as it were. All the women filmmakers featured in this season share Hui's mission in one way or another, and it is therefore a fascinating programme altogether. I congratulate the programmers for organizing the season and highly recommend it to film buffs and filmgoers in general who see film as a window on society and as a mirror of one's soul.
Stephen Teo, Author of Hong Kong Cinema: The Extra Dimensions (BFI Publishing)
