ATOM EGOYAN shudders when he remembers his last visit to Hong Kong. It was 18 years ago and he was here at the behest of the Hong Kong International Film Festival, at which his critically acclaimed second full-length feature Family Viewing was shown. The highlight of the night was to be a post-screening meet-the-audience session.
'Nobody asked questions,' says the Canadian director, remembering the stony silence. 'And I brought my mother with me. I wanted her to see how exciting it could be - but it wasn't what I thought.'
This time around, the reception couldn't have been more different. Egoyan was in town last week as guest of honour at the local Canadian Film Festival - his latest film, Where the Truth Lies, was the curtain-raiser for the two-week event - and the 46-year-old director was feted wherever he went.
The red-carpet treatment hasn't gone to his head. Settling into his couch, the first thing he asks is how long it takes for mail-order DVDs to arrive in Hong Kong from overseas. Then he launches into an passionate recollection of a shopping spree in Yau Ma Tei the night before, where he found DVDs he has never seen anywhere else, and original production stills of Blowup and Rashomon.
Such enthusiasm for trivia is testament to Egoyan's reputation as an idiosyncratic director. At the same time that he was directing Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon in Where the Truth Lies, he was: screening his no-budget digital video pieces at Camera, a 51-seat theatre-cum-bar he helps run in Toronto; preparing for a production of Wagner's Ring Cycle; and writing a book about the cultural meaning behind film subtitles (which was published last year).
'I want to be able to use my position to support emerging talent and give it a space of its own,' he says. 'The great thing about the bar and the cinema is that when filmmakers show their digital features, there can be discussion with their friends about it - and I'm proud to be able to present this zone. But it's tough to programme it all the time.'