Filmmaker Kiwi Chow (周冠威) on Saturday won Best Documentary Feature at the Golden Horse Awards for Revolution of Our Times (時代革命), which documents mass protests in Hong Kong in 2019 and is intended to offer solace to Hong Kongers everywhere.
Addressing the event in a prerecorded video message, Chow said that the film, which follows protesters marching against a controversial extradition bill, belongs to each Hong Konger who “has a conscience, a sense of justice and has shed tears for Hong Kong.”
One of the people interviewed for the film is a 16-year-old student Chow accompanied during a police siege at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the filmmaker said.
Photo: CNA
As the student’s involvement in the siege was widely known, returning to class was a terrifying experience for him, Chow said.
The student feared reprisals, but everyone in the classroom, including his teacher, gave him a hug, Chow said.
“I hope Revolution of Our Times can be like this hug. I cried a lot throughout the making of the film. Many times, I relied on it for comfort, and to release my anger and hatred,” Chow said, adding that making the film also helped him cope with fear and trauma.
“For those who are still in Hong Kong, including me, the many people who are in exile overseas and our compatriots in prison, even if you don’t have a chance to see the film, I hope and I pray to God, that the mere existence of this film can provide a sense of solace and be a hug. Thank you,” he said.
The documentary, which runs two hours and 32 minutes, was released in July and screened at the Cannes Film Festival. It traces the protests against a proposed extradition bill that many Hong Kongers felt would allow China to encroach on Hong Kong’s judicial independence.
The film highlights the at times deeply personal perspectives and stories of multiple protesters, and offers a broader picture of the movement and an understanding of its historical context.
The 42-year-old Chow last year won a Golden Horse award in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for the film Beyond the Dream.
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS