Ecological stewardship in times of environmental collapse; identity formation and resistance under the pressure of rampant capitalism and globalization; the promises and threats of technological progress: these are some of the topics that seep (and, at times, burst) through the 29 works selected for this year’s Film Sector at Art Basel Hong Kong. Selected by curator and producer Li Zhenhua, the films are as many attempts by artists from across Asia and beyond to rethink, reframe, and offer new narratives to apprehend these questions. They channel aesthetics and approaches that oscillate between documentary and fiction, realistic and experimental, poetic and confrontational, nostalgic and futuristic. This expanded edition opens with a screening of Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s feature film Memoria (2021), and includes two series of screenings guest-curated by Christina Li, curator of Bangkok’s triennial video and performance art series Ghost 2565, and by Hong Kong nonprofit institution, Videotage. Here are some of the highlights to look forward to.
Wang Tuo, The Interrogation, 2017
18’35”, Blindspot Gallery
The Interrogation is a gripping short film that reflects on identity, truth, and alienation, bathed in the long-lasting afterglow of French New Wave cinema. The 18-minute film, made up of still film photography unfolds to a voiceover by a narrator in a nod to Chris Marker. It intertwines two tales: the retelling of a man’s final round of job interviews, and the cynical strategies and mind games he deploys to trick the interviewer into believing he’s the perfect candidate; the other will be familiar to cinephiles, who will recognize the eerie storyline of Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (1966), in the relationship between an actress who becomes mute after a nervous breakdown and her psychiatric nurse. The rhythm, cinematic shots, and intricate interlacing of stories makes The Interrogation both riveting and deeply psychological, surfing the uncomfortable, ever-shifting line between truth and fiction, sanity and madness.
The Interrogation will be screened in the short film program ‘Being Human’, held at Louis Koo Cinema, Hong Kong Arts Centre on March 23, 2023 at 8pm. For full details, please click here.
Lawrence Abu Hamdan, 45th Parallel, 2022
15’, mor charpentier
What is a border? This film by the Beirut-based artist is a story about how abstract, arbitrary lines, often drawn on a blank map, translate into the real world in violent and absurd ways. Anchoring this tale – compellingly narrated and performed by film director Mahdi Fleifel – is the Haskell Free Library and Opera House, ‘a 400m2 anomaly’ that straddles the border between Canada and the US. This unique site, full of mythology and history, becomes the stage for an investigative journey into the case of Hernández v. Mesa, in which a US border patrol agent killed an unarmed 15-year-old Mexican national across the US-Mexico border. Drawing on court documents, military records, and media reports, it’s a ruthless, eloquent exposé of how borders protect ideas of nationhood over human life.
45th Parallel will be screened in the short film program ‘Oddly Shaped Reality’, held at Louis Koo Cinema, Hong Kong Arts Centre on March 24, 2023 at 3.45pm. For full details, please click here.
Tromarama, Marvin, 2019
4’01’’, ROH Projects
Over the past 20 years, the Indonesian collective Tromarama has become known for mining the relations between virtual and physical spaces and the impact of technology on our understanding of reality. Marvin, an intriguing four-minute video narrated by a computer-generated penguin with nipples, continues this investigation with the trio’s signature wit. To a rhythmic soundtrack, the work mixes and montages CGI of natural environments, Google searches, real footage of animals in the wild and in captivity, text, and emojis. All the while, our titular animal narrator delivers a monologue reflecting on the relationship of humans to their environment, interspecies communication, and how our reality is becoming increasingly mediated through the digital world. ‘I think eventually they recognized that the image is their habitat,’ Marvin remarks halfway through in his ominous, computerized voice.
Marvin will be screened in the short film program ‘Oddly Shaped Reality’, held at Louis Koo Cinema, Hong Kong Arts Centre on March 24, 2023 at 3.45pm. For full details, please click here.
Zheng Yuan, Game, 2017
17’01”, MadeIn Gallery
The impact of technological progress on our perception of reality is also at the heart of this film-essay by the Beijing-based artist, Zheng Yuan. Opening to a scene from Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1970 Le Cercle rouge and closing to images of Grand Theft Auto it tentatively unpicks the way in which our perception of the world has shifted along with the evolution of our representational tools – moving from film montage and multicamera live streaming of sports events to their translation in the virtual sphere of videogames. If such games once tried to emulate cinema, Zheng notes, virtual characters are now brought to life in franchises like Tomb Raider, with the videogame experience increasingly permeating the way in which films are made. Forgoing any definite conclusions, Zheng’s own multiperspective montage invites us to deconstruct the implications of the reality being presented to us and rethink our own position within it.
Gamewill be screened in the short film program ‘Game Ethics’, held at Louis Koo Cinema, Hong Kong Arts Centre on March 24, 2023 at 3pm. For full details, please click here.
Chulayarnnon Siriphol, Hua-Lam-Pong, 2004
12’, Bangkok CityCity Gallery
In a busy train station, an old man sporting an oversized flatcap slowly sets up a camera on a tripod. The camera follows his movements amid the fast-paced environment, as he seemingly adjusts the framing and setting on the device, impervious to the reactions of curious or bemused passersby. We never find out what he is filming, but as the minutes pass it becomes increasingly apparent that it’s irrelevant. Depending on how and when you watch it, the Thai filmmaker Chulayarnnon Siriphol’s Hua-Lam-Pong can be different things: a conceptual performance reflecting on the public and private spheres; or a mise en abyme celebrating the art of filmmaking. Or, in the context of Ghost 2565, a Bangkok-based video and performance art series themed around the phantasmagorical aspects of the city’s fabric, it could be read as an ode to the city’s historic railway station, whose traffic is gradually being absorbed by a new station, and which will eventually be turned into a museum.
Hua-Lam-Pong will be screened in the short film program ‘Ghost 2565 – Time and its discontents’, held at Louis Koo Cinema, Hong Kong Arts Centre on March 25, 2023 at 2.40pm. For full details, please click here.
Yinglin Zhou, One World, One Dream, 2018
11’09’’
Enter ‘Mondo’. In this computer-generated world, the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, and other major cultural landmarks punctuate a landscape of pristine nature, while ‘citivanos’ (citizens of the world) work together to rebuild the Tower of Babel using Esperanto to communicate amongst themselves. This strange universe is quite openly ironic – the work’s title was the slogan for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It reads like a quirky mockery of the once-utopian ideals of a globalized world and intercultural communication, and the quest for cultural hegemony that underpins them. The artist frames her image with translations from Esperanto into her native Mandarin, German (she lives between Berlin and Linz, Austria), and English, hinting at the fundamentally biased conception of Esperanto as a universal language, yet one that draws largely on Indo-European languages. Looming over this virtual world however, is the biblical tower – a symbol, perhaps, of the doom that awaits any such homogenizing project.
One World, One Dreamwill be screened in the short film program ‘Videotage – Good Prospect!’, held at Louis Koo Cinema, Hong Kong Arts Centre on March 24, 2023 at 11am. For full details, please click here.
For the full details of Art Basel Hong Kong’s Film Program, click here.
Louise Darblay is a writer, editor, and translator based in London.
Published on March 15, 2023.
Caption for full-bleed images: 1. Wang Tuo, The Interrogation (HD single channel video, 18'35"), 2017. Courtesy of the artist and Blindspot Gallery. 2. Lawrence Abu Hamdan, 45th Parallel (film still), 2022. Courtesy of the artist and mor charpentier.