For at least a decade, Winnie Tsang Lai-fun dreamed of having her own cinema. Tsang is the founder and managing director of Golden Scene, which distributes, and occasionally produces, films. In Hong Kong, big cinema complexes tend to be owned by the studios that make movies, and they get screening priority. That can make it difficult for smaller films, local and foreign, to gain traction in Hong Kong, and Tsang wants to change that. However, the city’s independent cinemas have never had it easy; and these are complicated times. “It took us almost one-and-a-half years to find the location,” she says in Kennedy Town on Hong Kong Island, where Golden Scene’s first cinema – with four screens and 283 seats – opened last month. She’s perched on a plastic stool behind the bare bar (its liquor licence is pending) and people are strolling past on their way to afternoon viewings. At her throat gleams a crucifix. As it happens, the place she eventually found for the cinema, on the corner of North Street and Catchick Street, used to be a Protestant church. “I think God gave this to me,” she says. “I found Him when I’m very sick. I had cancer in 2019. I didn’t hide it but I didn’t publicly announce it. Now, I don’t mind telling people. It can encourage them that cancer is curable. You don’t have to be upset.” She was undergoing chemotherapy at the same time she was negotiating with the landlord of the site in Kennedy Town. “I was wearing a wig,” she says. “And my colleague, Felix, did all the pitching. I just had to show my face.” Hong Kong’s UA Cinemas shuts, citing ‘devastating pressure’ of pandemic Felix Tsang Hinman , her nephew, is Golden Scene’s sales and acquisitions manager. He studied at Chicago’s Northwestern University and brings an American sensibility to the project. “Finally, when people in Kennedy Town go on a date,” he says, “they can have dinner and a movie.” Did Tsang, the founder, ever think of pulling out? “No.” A pause. “I lost two shareholders at the end of March because of the pandemic . They wanted to leave. And they went.” She knew she could be facing failure. “Yeah, everybody told me the business will be very bad for years. I think even the landlord thought I would give up. The two shareholders didn’t trust me!” (Both were replaced.) There’s wounded emotion in that utterance; did she cry about their departure? “I didn’t. I only cry when I watch movies – then I start and I cry, cry, cry. But I seldom cry in front of people. I don’t even cry at home because of this. I think: I can just find new ones. I have faith in God.” Teased that it might have been divine payback for the church’s departure, she replies: “I didn’t kick them out! Also, the landlord compensated them.” Tsang has been a cinema fan for decades, ever since she saw The Sound of Music at one as a child in the 1960s. Her father took her, she says. When asked why her mother didn’t go, she replies that her mother couldn’t read the subtitles. Tsang, however, was born at a time when opportunities were opening for women. She’s coy about her exact age – “You can work it out” – so let’s just say it was 1976 when, after studying at the Sacred Heart Canossian Convent Commercial School, she began work as a secretary at Golden Harvest , founded as a film studio in 1970. By the time Tsang arrived, it also had a subsidiary called Panasia, which handled foreign-film distribution. She could type, take shorthand and (crucially) had an excellent stomach and was over 18, which meant she could familiarise herself with wide-ranging material. One of her early viewings was In The Realm of The Senses , which, in 1976, scandalised audiences worldwide. Be warned: even the Wikipedia plot summary for the film, which was then banned in Hong Kong, requires steady nerves. It’s a long way from Austrian nuns. “I was, wow, so shocked!” says Tsang. “I didn’t get the meaning.” Still, a decade later, having learned the nuances of film appreciation from critics, she acquired it for distribution. This time it passed the censors, “with a lot of cuts” as she puts it. Her head for business turned out to be as strong as her stomach. During a later discussion about film festivals, she asks, “Have you watched Kim Ki-duk ’s The Isle ? Korean director, 20 years ago. People walked out, the trade papers said they were vomiting, fainting … I bought the film actually.” Her bosses, she says, were men “but when I first started there were already very famous women, like Terry Lai [Siu-ping]. She ran Intercontinental [Film Distributors].” Lai established Intercontinental Film Distributors in 1969 and set up multiplex cinema chain MCL in 1982. In 1986, she became a founding member and the first chairman of the Hong Kong Motion Picture Industry Association. “In film distribution, there’s a lot of women,” says Tsang. “Like Audrey Lee, who used to work at Edko [Films].” Lee, who retired in 2014, was at Edko for 33 years and was replaced by Esther Yeung. What makes women a particular fit? “You have to be very detailed. I don’t mean men are not detailed, but in distribution you need to do a lot of dirty jobs.” These aren’t of the Category III or Harvey Weinstein variety; they’re mundane duties. How Hong Kong’s film industry can reinvent itself for a global audience “If you hold a premiere, there’s a lot of stuff you have to handle before the glamorous opening.” On the whole, however, her philosophy is pragmatic: “It’s not because you’re a man or a woman – money matters!” She learned that the hard way. In the summer of 1998, during the Asian financial crisis , Golden Harvest announced a “restructuring” – which included the closure of Panasia, of which she was general manager. “My staff cried, we had all been working there so long.” Tsang didn’t weep. Instead, she made a proposal: she’d take her team, start her own business and sign a one-year distribution contract with Golden Harvest. Golden Scene already legally existed. At the time, salaried staff could set up companies to deduct expenses, and Golden Harvest had a list from which employees could select a properly lustrous name. In 1998, Golden Scene became fully operational in Tsang’s own right. For a year, she distributed films on behalf of Golden Harvest. Then it took its staff back, leaving Tsang feeling understandably tarnished. The first film Golden Scene bought was Sleepless Town which, by that point, surely seemed appropriate. Tsang laughs. “Actually, I was trying to apply to a school in London,” she says. “I just wanted to take a break and go somewhere else to broaden myself. It didn’t happen because The Ring was successful .” It’s true that the original 1998 Japanese horror film, for which she had distribution rights, was a mega-hit. But, and maybe this is characteristic, it wasn’t success that spurred her on: it was failure. In 1999, another company won the distribution rights for Ring 2 . “I was so mad. You start your own company, you don’t get support from other people … I was so disappointed. I thought to myself, I will stay. But I don’t know if it’s a good decision or not.” Amid the surroundings of her new cinema, it’s odd to hear an unmistakable note of regret. “Yeah.” She glances about, for a brief second. Posters for the week’s titles could be read as a life summary: My Missing Valentine, Shock Wave 2, Soul . “Maybe I’d have done something in London .” Jacky Ip from Monotype Studio, who did the cinema’s design, describes the muted interior as “timeless – you can’t tell if it’s the present or the past”. The television screens above the bar are attached by tracks and wires that evoke visuals of the tramlines that have run along Catchick Street since 1904. But, like the city, Kennedy Town is shape-shifting; three doors down, there’s a new shop displaying a bitcoin logo. Censorship, too, has taken on meanings beyond sex and violence. Tsang says that as long as a film has a censor’s certificate, she can show it. Would she take a year off now? “I don’t think I will go study any more, I’m too old.” But her cinema – isn’t that a consolation prize? Tsang agrees: “Every week, films are coming out and I can choose the best ones. It’s a dream … so, you see, I’m happy.”