Name: Jessey Tsang Tsui-shan Star sign: Cancer Chinese zodiac: Horse Filmography: Jeffven & Jordy (co-director; 2001), Chan Sau Chun (co-director; 2001), Sh3 (2004), Lonely Planet (2004), Ou est la sortie? (2007), Lovers on the Road (2008), Stories (2010), Big Blue Lake (2011)
Before entering film school ... I was a bit of a wild kid. I would fish and steal sweet potatoes from other people's fields. When I was in Primary Six, I liked foreign music. In secondary school, I was interested in foreign things. When I had to choose the subjects at the Academy for Performing Arts, I chose film and sound design and recording.
I realised that ... I was really interested in using the camera to see the world. My first documentary was five minutes long, about two of my friends getting tattoos on the same night. Both of the girls had broken hearts and were from single-parent families. They wanted to mark themselves [and feel] reborn. So I started to gain an interest in people's true stories.
I am from ... Ho Chung [in Sai Kung, the setting of Big Blue Lake], where I've lived my whole life. My mother's role [in the film], marrying into the village, these types of elements are real. I'd say 30 to 40 per cent of the film is autobiographical. No, maybe 50-50? [laughs]. It's mostly the feelings that are real.
When we were developing the script ... I invited the co-scriptwriter Luk Bo-bo to my village and talked a lot about childhood memories ... [I told her] 'I did swim in a lake when I was little. Ah, it seems like it was called Big Blue Lake.'
Like in the film, we tried to look for it but got lost. Then I remembered - it wasn't Big Blue Lake. I had swum in another place called Shek Pok Wai - it's like a little pond. At that time I thought, how can we rely on memory? Does this exist or is this memory? You might ask these types of questions. There's a disconnect [between reality and memory]. You thought there was a lake, but it's really a pond. Fact and memory can be different.
Big Blue Lake opens on Thursday