bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sponsorType

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Lee Wing-Sze

When director Brian Hung Kwong-yin was a secondary student, instead of watching  Hollywood

films and  Stephen Chiau Sing-chi's comedies like his peers, he used to hang out at art-house cinemas.

Tonight, the 23-year-old director  will  show his latest short film, Crazy Man, at one of his favourite cinemas - Broadway Cinematheque.

The 11-minute short movie is part of the screening programme, 31/2, presented by the independent film-making group Plastic Tomato which was formed by Hung and his friends Hermann Ho Chi-ping and Kenny Chow Ka-nin last year.

The programme also features a 50-minute drama, The Souvenir, directed by Ho and an animation, Not Our Final Fantasy, by Chow.

As a  secondary school student,  Hung would visit  a  cinema once a week.

'I loved watching movies and would always think about movies,'  he said.

'I was a pretty sentimental teenager. Movies  were also a channel for me to vent my emotions.'

The Love Letter (1995), by award-winning Japanese director Shunji Iwai,  was the film that inspired Hung to shift to the art-house movie world, away from   mainstream films.

Since then, he has been exploring different kinds of art house and alternative movies.

'Hollywood movies are always the same, only the actors and setting are different for each production. I couldn't get much from them,' he said. 'When I watched art-house movies, there was always something that fascinated and touched me.

'Gradually, I took it as something I would really enjoy to do for the rest of my life,' said the film and  television graduate from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

At age 17, he picked up a  video camera to make  his first short video, My Bounce Ko Kals, which won him a distinguished award at the 4th Hong Kong Independent Short Film And Video Awards.

'[After that] I started to think about turning [my hobby]  into a  career or do something related to movies in the future,' he said.

The  award  also included a film workshop at the Hong Kong Arts Centre where he met Ho.

Like Hung, Ho and Chow's movie interests  developed  during their secondary school years.

'When we look back, lots of our tastes and interests were developed during that period, including our love  of movies,' Chow said.

The trio hopes  to lend a hand to nurturing  an interest  in art-house movies among young people by offering a fresh alternative to mainstream films through their production group.

'If young people open up themselves to different kinds of movies, they will be able to choose what they really like,' said Chow.

31/2 will be presented at 9.40pm tonight and September 4 at Broadway Cinematheque, Prosperous Garden, 3 Public Square Street, Yau Ma Tei. Tickets  are $40 and available at the cinema  box office.



Alternative cinema