Four years in the making, the recently-completed documentary Hong Kong: Out of the Shadows attempts to highlight how the world-famous city is still struggling to achieve full democracy — 16 years after its British overlords left one of their last colonial outposts.
Film-maker, journalist and sometime contributor to the Taipei Times, Sam Wild spent four years making the film, including two years editing in Taiwan. Wild charts the rise of the city’s 2009 to 2010 youth-lead protest movement and presents a multitude of voices in a bid to explore how economic inequalities are intrinsically linked to the nature of Hong Kong’s unique political landscape.
To explain the arcane and complex nature of the city’s political system, Wild interviewed dozens of key political leaders to find out why this semi-autonomous East Asian metropolis is still largely governed by corporate interest groups.
Photo courtesy of Sam Wild
The film also tells the parallel stories of two Hong Kong residents — a wealthy UK expat and an impoverished middle-aged Chinese migrant. Amid all the politics and injustice, Wild also explores the landscape of this city of seven million people and reminds us that this vast urban world is the most crowded place on earth.
The screening takes place tomorrow at 7:30pm at Taitung City’s Eslite Bookstore, 2F, 478, Boai Rd, Taitung County (台東市博愛路478號), tel: (08) 933-0388.
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