Film, music, photography, art – summer highlights of Le French May festival in Hong Kong
- There are several art and photography shows to catch this month, as well as films by French directors, including Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element
- Annual festival has had to be scaled down because of the coronavirus pandemic, with events postponed or cancelled
The coronavirus pandemic has led to the postponement or cancellation of many events on the Hong Kong cultural calendar, but festival Le French May has been able to press ahead with some of its programme, thanks to its focus on local collaborations this year.
In the past, the annual arts festival has staged an average of 150 programmes over a two-month span, drawing more than a million visitors. While the pandemic has decreased the size and reach of the 27-year-old event this year, it has not altered the content, according to its strategic and artistic director, Julien-Loïc Garin.
“We don’t intend to let the pandemic create a shift in our core way of programming. Yet we definitely need to be more flexible, and develop more and more partnerships with the local arts groups,” says Garin.
Events such as art exhibitions, for which it is easier to enforce and maintain safety measures and social distancing rules, have largely been held as planned.
Hong Kong-based French artist Daphné Mandel’s mixed media compositions, currently on view in a solo exhibition, “Organic City”, at Pékin Fine Arts gallery in Wong Chuk Hang, explore the coexistence of Hong Kong’s natural landscape with its constructed urban one.
Garin says one festival highlight had to be postponed – an exhibition of Surrealist art involving a collaboration between The Hong Kong Museum of Art and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. It will feature more than 90 major works by artists including Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Pablo Picasso, and Jackson Pollock, and explore the inspirations and influence of Surrealism. Works by Hong Kong contemporary artists will be featured as well.
Another programme that Garin says is still in the pipeline is a dance and acrobatic adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s bestselling children’s book The Little Prince.
In the meantime, for those who prefer to stay in their homes, the online platform nowE.com, in collaboration with Le French May and cinema chain Movie Movie, offers a selection of French films, which can be viewed free of charge until June 15.
They include Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element and The Big Blue, as well as Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amelie.
While the performing arts have been gravely affected by the coronavirus pandemic, with performance venues in the city still closed to the public, a recital of piano works by French composer Maurice Ravel and Chinese composer Zhou Long will be live-streamed on June 18.
