HongAFI nominated director, Charlie Hill-Smith’s first documentary, is a telling insight into the complexities that face modern China. In 1997 the most free market city of earth was consumed by the last great communist state, but who is China? What is China? Travel from Hong Kong to Beijing to Tibet to grab a warts and all snap shot of the Middle Kingdom as it rises to become the great power of the twenty first century.
Charlie Hill-Smith

The first feature-length documentary to explore the career of Stephen Chow; featuring collaborators, critics, and academics. Produced for the Shout Factory release of his classic work on Blu-ray, "The Stephen Chow Collection" released in 2024. Fans will learn how Chow went from Hong Kong's TVB to feature film riches, with his peculiar brand of localized comedy, to becoming one of the most successful brand names in Mainland China, including the blockbuster reception for his comedy "The Mermaid" in 2016.
2024

By asking the same question across generations of Southern Chinese in the UK, this film documents a vignette of two recent Hong Kong immigrants and reflects their own socio-political conditions through their conversation.
2022

A homage to the social housing architecture that is so atypical of Hong Kong - especially the Kwai Shing West Estate. About half of the population lives in such building complexes, where one experiences a strong sense of loneliness. The neighborhoods are the scene of modern living conditions, but also of social protests, which have been punishable by life imprisonment in Hong Kong since 2020 due to a new law.
2021

The documentary offers a glimpse into the life of a farmer who worked in the fields with his father when he was young. After spending time in the city as an adult, he returns to the countryside to take over the family’s business and learns the essence of making a living from the land.
2020

In 1971, after being rejected by Hollywood, Bruce Lee returned to his parents’ homeland of Hong Kong to complete four iconic films. Charting his struggles between two worlds, this portrait explores questions of identity and representation through the use of rare archival footage, interviews with loved ones and Bruce’s own writings.
2020

West Estate spotlights the severe housing problems in Hong Kong, taking the spirit of resistance outside of the protest. The damaged walls in the cage-like tenements reflect the many forms of social injustice as well as Hongkongers’ widespread sense of rootlessness. Connecting three stories from different households like puzzle pieces, the film depicts people’s despair over issues of family, sexuality, love, and freedom.
2020

This Anti-ELAB (Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill) Movement documentary short takes us back to the airport occupation on 12 August 2019. Although this new form of protest soon turned into a crisis, it became an important lesson for the protesters. Compared to the tension inside the airport terminal, the long walk home at sunset on the Lantau highway, which connects the Hong Kong International Airport to the residential areas, felt like a reminiscence of a school field trip.
2020

Young people are protesting on the streets of Hong Kong in order to bring about change. Air soaked with tear gas, the dark uniforms and loud commands of the police officers in the colourful umbrella sea of the protesters. In the midst of the action, the film documents a brand new protest movement.
2020

A loose collection of scenes in Hong Kong shot over a five-year period, this film begins with the Umbrella Movement in 2014 and ends right before the summer of 2019, when large-scale social unrest and violent resistance erupted. The everyday scenes capture the ambience and the landscape of change in the city, standing as a quiet prelude to the ensuing conflicts.
2020

As the 'one country two systems' policy in Hong Kong has slowly eroded, resentment among the territory's citizens has steadily grown. What began as a series of spontaneous protests against an extradition law in March 2019 has now escalated in to a full-blown popular uprising that shows no signs of abating. ABC Four Corners reports from the frontline of the action, capturing extraordinary footage of the growing tension and violence.
2019

A crew of filmmakers shoot undercover on the streets of Hong Kong with hidden microphones and no permits. The city becomes a giant set as mounting tension and ego clashes push tempers to breaking point.
2019

YAYA is a story about a filmmaker who explores the complex relationship between his family and the domestic worker who spent decades away from her family in the Philippines to raise his. This documentary is a tribute to all the domestic workers in Hong Kong, who has served as the backbone of Hong Kong's economy by unleashing a substantial female workforce into the economy and taken care of so many lives with love and care. You are all heroes in the hearts of the Hong Kong people. - Justin Cheung, the director
2018

The Real Story of Fake Democracy. Filmed over three years in five countries, FREEDOM FOR THE WOLF is an epic investigation into the new regime of illiberal democracy. From the young students of Hong Kong, to a rapper in post-Arab Spring Tunisia and the viral comedians of Bollywood, we discover how people from every corner of the globe are fighting the same struggle. They are fighting against elected leaders who trample on human rights, minorities, and their political opponents.
2017

They are frozen in place, stagnating without any direction. Around them, things change rapidly.
2016

Journey with the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic and their conductor Sir Simon Rattle on a breakneck concert tour of six metropolises across Asia: Beijing, Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Tokyo. Their artistic triumph onstage belies a dynamic and dramatic life backstage. The orchestra is a closed society that observes its own laws and traditions, and in the words of one of its musicians is, “an island, a democratic microcosm – almost without precedent in the music world - whose social structure and cohesion is not only founded on a common love for music but also informed by competition, compulsion and the pressure to perform to a high pitch of excellence... .” Never before has the Berlin Philharmonic allowed such intimate and exclusive access into its private world.
2008

Allows glimpses on a Hong Kong shortly before the 1997 handover to China. But rather than focusing on the expected hysteria Luc Schaedler’s documentary debut works towards complexity by allowing six diverse residents to talk about their relationship to the colonial city. Their life stories beautifully mix with the images of the author. Made in Hong Kong is a very personal portrait of a city in transition and we learn about Hong Kong’s ambiguities and its political and social problems, as well as the uncertainties regarding the time after 1997.
1997

This documentary / fund raiser film was produced in 1984 by the Hong Kong Salvation Army to raise sponsorship for their educational activities in the infamous Kowloon Walled City. The project was filmed in 16mm film.
1984

Set in Hong Kong, the narcotics documentary Opium: The White Powder Opera (1976-77) was commissioned by a British television station. Yung, its associate producer and cinematographer, joined the surveillance team of the Narcotics Bureau to acquaint himself with the workings of the drug trade. This paved the way for The System. In addition to the cat-and-mouse game between the cops and the druglord, a fascinating thread traces the relationship among dealers, junkies and mules in Sai Ying Pun. The title hails from Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera, another tragedy concerned with a capitalist society’s oppressed and exploited nobodies.
1976
Documentary about two boys and a girl who travel to surfing spots around the world.
1969

An asylum seeker from Hong Kong builds a new life for himself in Glasgow, using his passion for street food to maintain his cultural identity.