Finally showing: movie that makes everyone fall in love with Hong Kong

Asian-American director Emily Ting I-tien's first full-length feature, shot entirely in Hong Kong, shows the city in such a favourable light that reviewers have been telling her the Tourism Board should have her on the payroll.

The 78-minute film, titled It's Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong, is about a Chinese woman from Los Angeles who visits for business, meets an American expat working in finance, and develops a budding romance while exploring various parts of the city, from Lan Kwai Fong and Central to Chungking Mansions and Temple Street. The 35-year-old Ting says she made the film to explore those rare moments when people make genuine human connections in a bustling city such as Hong Kong (inspired by a similar moment of her own), and to show the city in a different light.

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"This film shows a different side of Hong Kong that people who are not familiar with Hong Kong have not really been subjected to. To a lot of Westerners, it feels like a really refreshing take on Hong Kong, something that they haven't seen before," Ting says.

She feels so strongly about this that she has sunk most of her life savings into the film. She doesn't want to say exactly how much it cost, except that it was less than US$1 million. "When I say that this movie is a culmination of everything I've been building in my life, it truly is on a personal level, on a creative level, and even on a financial level."

Roya Rastegar, associate director of programming and curated content at the Los Angeles Film Festival, says she knew the film was a success because the programming staff were all dying to go to Hong Kong after they first watched the film.