Tammy Cheung
An independent documentary filmmaker since the 90s, Tammy Cheung is also the founder of film distribution company Visible Record, which also organizes the annual Chinese Documentary Festival. She takes some time out of her busy day to tell Leanne Mirandilla about the trials and tribulations involved in being a filmmaker in a place where documentary is still considered an obscure medium.
I was born in Shanghai and I got to Hong Kong when I was five. I came here with my family. I was in Canada—Montreal—for 10 years, from ’84 to ’94. I went to Concordia University and studied film there [at undergraduate level]. Then I came back to Hong Kong.
When I was young, I thought of working as a social worker. But before I went to college, I thought being a social worker was too much, too difficult. Instead I thought I could learn a bit more about society, so I took sociology. I learned a lot. Then I worked as a prison guard.
For my second job, I went to teach in a secondary school for a year, and then I went to work for the government for half a year. And for my final job, before I left Hong Kong [for Canada], I went to teach again at a primary school. So I had four jobs in two years! At that time it was very easy for us to get jobs.
Then I went to Canada. At first, I planned to study communications. The idea was that I could come back to work at TV stations as a journalist or news anchor or whatever.
At first, I took English. I thought it would help improve my language skills. After one semester I managed to get into Concordia’s film school. I got the impression that everybody was having fun there. I didn’t know what I would do after graduation, but I just went.
I borrowed money from my mom and everyone else [for my first films]. I took money from my own savings. Funding has always been a big problem for us.
After “Rice Distribution” [Cheung’s 2003 documentary about the elderly that collect bags of rice from Taoist charities during the Hungry Ghost Festival], I became interested in old people’s issues because I want to know what’s going on with them, what happened with their lives, what about their children? It looks like nobody’s taking care of them.