Blue Island 憂鬱之島

18 Feb

Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan / 2022 / Colour / 97 mins / In Cantonese, Mandarin & English with Traditional Chinese and English subtitles / Dir. Tze Woon CHAN

2023 / 03 / 26 (SUN) - 14:00
“Resistance, Reenacted in HK & UK”
Blue Island X The Battle of Orgreave Parallel Screenings Screen Talk
Art as a Dissident Form : Re-invention of Living memory, history & identity
* In Person / Online Post-screening Q&A
Genesis Cinema BOOK NOW
2023 / 03 / 28 （Tue）- 19:30
This film is being played as part of A Mirror Image : Hong Kong X Taiwan Documentaries parallel programme, Kindred Histories with Taste of Wild Tomato
Safra Lecture Theatre, King’s College London BOOK NOW
2023 / 03 / 23 （Thu）- 19:00
This film is being played as part of A Mirror Image : Hong Kong X Taiwan Documentaries parallel programme, Kindred Histories with Taste of Wild Tomato
The International Anthony Burgess Foundation BOOK NOW
2023 / 03 / 25 (SAT) - 11:30
“Resistance, Reenacted in HK & UK”
Blue Island X The Battle of Orgreave Parallel Screenings Screen Talk
Art as a Dissident Form : Re-invention of Living memory, history & identity
* In Person / Online Post-screening Q&A
School of Digital Arts (SODA) Cinema, Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) BOOK NOW

The film documents three real-life characters across time engaging in rebellions (during the Cultural Revolution, during the 1967 riot and during the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre) when they were young. Through reconstructing these events, the film dramatises their scarred memories and experiences by interlinking their stories with four young people who have participated in the 2019 Anti-extradition Law Amendment Movement in Hong Kong. Although these protagonists are separated by time and history, their lives parallel and overlap with each other as they find themselves swimming in similar chaotic predicaments.

Chan Tze Woon is a Hong Kong-based director and writer. Born 1987 and raised in this city, his debut feature-length documentary Yellowing (2016) examined the Umbrella Movement, a large-scale civil occupation in 2014. This documentary explored Hong Kong's fraught relationship with mainland China. It won the Shinsuke Ogawa Prize at the 2017 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Documentary at the 2016 Taipei Golden Horse Film Awards.
Chan's first two short films, The AqueousTruth (2013) and Being Rain: Representation and Will (2014), both broached the subject of HongKong's political situation by means of conspiracy plots and mockumentary form.
Blue Island is Chan's second feature-length film.
I was born in the very last decade of Britain’s colonial rule over Hong Kong. Along with a population full of trepidation about the impending transfer of sovereignty to China, I grew up under a shroud of uncertainty. The accompanying political and social upheavals prompted me to embark on an exploration of the nuances of 'Hongkongers' collective identity. The intertwining destinies of Hong Kong and China is therefore a topic close to my heart.
My conception of this film emerged during the low tide right after the Umbrella Movement of 2014. Shrouded in a collective feeling of failure and hopelessness, I considered seeking out people who experienced other major historic events in Hong Kong. I wondered if, through reminiscences of their experiences, we could explore the universality of the plight of civic activism.
As the project proceeded, this impression of a sweeping atmosphere of melancholy on an isolated island became even more pronounced. Especially following the Anti-extradition Law Movement in 2019, the title Blue Island suits even better the limbo we now find ourselves in.
This is a story about those generations who have contemplated the nature of Hong Kong and their identities as Hongkongers, but are depressed by their inability to shape the city's fate. This kind of disillusionment is a universal tether that binds all of us together.
Best international feature(outspoken outstanding) at hotdocs 2022
Comcast Xfinity Documentary Competition award at CAAMFEST 2022
Official selection at MIFF 2022
Official selection at BFI London Film Festival 2022
Official selection International Film festival Rotterdam 2022
Official selection at New directors New Films 2022
Taiwan International Documentary Festival 2022