Hong Kong should set up a professional film school to improve its movie industry, according to a German professor.
Wolfgang Langsfeld, a professor of aesthetics, drama theory and production for film and TV at the College of Television and Film in Munich, was a member of the jury for the third annual University Film and Television Festival in the Greater China Region, held in Hong Kong recently. Film experts from Europe, the US and Japan were also on the jury.
There are three institutes in Hong Kong offering professional training in film production; Baptist University, City University and the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.
'Most of the quality productions are coming from film schools, where the majority of students are doing the subject as part of postgraduate studies,' said Professor Langsfeld, who recently set up Pakistan's first film school. 'They have experience of both life and studying, and that gives them a maturity in film making which is always lacking in people who start film education too early. They also tend to have a clear vision in the industry,' he said.
But Lam Chun-yue, a film critic and independent film maker, who quit his job as a journalist and went to New York to learn film making, said it was audience demand rather than film makers' training that determined the quality of movies. 'Hong Kong people go to cinemas for amusement. Movies [here] are just a form of entertainment instead of a vehicle for reflection or intellectual dialogue,' he said.
Professor Langsfeld disagreed, saying it took a good movie to break the cycle. 'To cultivate an appetite for documentaries, audiences need to see good ones,' he said.
