Where has Hong Kong gone? Once a world filmmaking capital, it has nearly vanished from the silver screen. Each year, far fewer feature films are made here than in cities such as Vancouver, Seoul and Tehran. What's more, many recent Hong Kong movies, geared towards the lucrative mainland market, lack the local flavour that once made them so distinctive.
That's something one of Hong Kong's newest and most energetic film festivals hopes to change. After a one-year hiatus, I Shot Hong Kong is back, with a programme of 26 proudly local short films, music videos and documentaries.
'Hong Kong has lost its status as a premier filmmaking centre,' laments Craig Leeson, who helped found the festival in 2005. 'In the late 1980s and early 90s, we were making 300 films a year here. From the start of 2001 until now, we've been making less than 50 a year. I think one of the reasons for that is that there's no support for independent filmmakers or new talent. We're not propagating filmmakers at the grass-roots level.'
With that in mind, Leeson has opened I Shot Hong Kong to filmmakers around the world, hoping to build a bridge between local and overseas filmmakers and to establish Hong Kong as a centre for independent film. To ensure local content, one of the criteria by which the festivals films are judged is the degree to which Hong Kong plays a role in the action.
'With these films you'll be seeing locations that you don't normally see. One of them is a horror film set on Lamma Island. I've never seen a film from Lamma,' says Leeson, referring to an entry entitled Isle Be Damned (pictured below right).
'When people come to the opening night, they don't sit there like normal audiences, they have a very vocal reaction, they gasp and clap, and that's because they recognise the places and the faces.'
For the first time, I Shot Hong Kong will take place at a commercial venue, the Grand Cinema, which the organisers hope will attract a wider audience than in previous years at the Hong Kong Arts Centre.
