Lost in Hong Kong, Moonlight co-producer Andrew Hevia’s intended film about the city’s art scene became documentary of his failure to execute the plan
- Leave the Bus Through the Broken Window was supposed to be a documentary about Art Basel Hong Kong and the city’s vibrant art scene
- Realising he was in over his head, Hevia instead filmed a quirky diary about being powerless in a city where you don’t know the rules
Hevia had just finished co-producing Moonlight (2016) but had yet to see how successful that film would be. Perhaps the art world glitterati would have received him with open arms had he come the following year, after it won the Oscar for best picture.
Leave the Bus Through the Broken Window (2019) is a quirky, diary-style record of how Hevia failed to make the structured, conventional documentary he originally had in mind.
A text-to-speech computer program provides unsympathetic, droll, robotic narration and his handheld video camera captures the frustration as he runs around Hong Kong looking for art events to comment on. Four months after landing in the city, he realises that he has no idea who he should be interviewing or where to go.
“You are completely unprepared, you are f***ed. Why did you think this is a good idea? You have a camera and nothing else,” the robot voice unhelpfully announces.