Outtakes

INDEPENDENT’S DAY
Five years ago, indie music fan Gary Chan Chi-yan founded Redline Music, an indie record label aimed at promoting alternative, diverse music. Although the label developed a dedicated following in indie circles, it has found the Hong Kong market a tough one to crack for those not selling Canto-pop. “There have been a lot of difficulties in the five years of running Redline,” says Chan, who last year had to separate the label from Re:spect magazine, which he co-founded, due to disagreements over business direction. Redline’s roster consists of only five bands, but two of them happen to be Supper Moment and Chochukmo, two of the city’s most popular indie outfits. They will headline the label’s fifth anniversary gigs at Kitec in Kowloon Bay on July 11and 12 along with guests Chui Ball Tong and Survive Said the Prophet, respectively from the mainland and Japan. “I have no idea where Redline will be five years from now,” Chan says. “I can only hope we can keep doing what we believe in. But for now, we celebrate.” Tickets for the gigs are HK$280 from Tom Lee Music’s Causeway Bay, Sha Tin and Tsim Sha Tsui branches, or on the door

SUMMER TREATS
Woody Allen’s Magic in the Moonlight and Taiwanese murder mystery Partners in Crime respectively will open and close the Hong Kong International Film Festival’s Cine Fan Summer International Film Festival programme, which runs from August 12 to 26. Magic follows the Allen template of recent years: a quirky comedy set in Europe with an ensemble cast including Emma Stone and Colin Firth. Partners, meanwhile, is the second feature by acclaimed young director Chang Jungchi, whose debut, Touch of the Light, was Taiwan’s entry for best foreign language film category at the 2012 Oscars. Tickets for the festival go on sale on July 16.

GET INTO THE SPIRIT
Nick Cheung Ka-fai’s directorial debut, Hungry Ghost Ritual, which opened this week, is about a Cantonese opera troupe that is being haunted by spirits. So it was fitting — and eerie — that the film held its premiere at the Sunbeam Theatre in North Point, the only dedicated Chinese opera venue in the city. The mood was set for the night with tickets (above) that resembled aged, crumbled opera stubs, and a woman, with hair covering her face, “haunting” the audience by walking down the dimly lit aisle of the darkened theatre. It was a refreshing change from the usual glitz and glam of local premieres.