Not Going Away: HKLGFF ’23
The 34th edition of the region’s LGBTQ+ film festival grande dame is upon us, once again in all its up close and personal glory.
It is getting very, very grim out there for LGBTQ+ people. Laws seem to be springing up all over the place either banning books about queer people, prohibiting same sex marriages, teens from deciding their genders or using the word “trans” around kids under 12, and opening fire on nightclubs, a favourite among bigots. And that’s outside Russia. Who wouldn’t want to just stay inside and open a bottle of vodka? Combatting this assholery for the 34th time is the Hong Kong Lesbian & Gay Film Festival (HKLGFF) with a streamlined programme that’s both illuminating and celebratory. And now that the border is open again, there will be panels, discussions and filmmaker Q&As to bask in.
The fest kicks off this year on something of a see-saw: Byun Sung-bin’s drama Peafowl and Hannah Pearl Utt’s comedy Cora Bora. Byun’s film is about a transgender dancer returning to the hometown she ditched years before for obvious reasons, compelled to perform a gendered traditional drum dance for her father’s memorial. Peafowl is blessed with a stellar lead performance by Choi Hae-jun, and either wraps up too neatly or has a welcome happy ending – depending on your POV. Cora Bora stars Megan Stalter as a budding musician and walking disaster area – but a funny one – trying to sort out her messy life. Conventionally, Cora is the sassy, pudgy sidekick; think Sarah Jessica Parker’s bestie in some shitty rom-com. But here she’s the shame-free casually queer lead, and it’s a refreshing change of pace. HKLGFF closes with Tom Gustafson’s Glitter & Doom, a love-at-first-sight, Mexico City-set jukebox musical. ’Nuff said.
And before we get back to the film highlights, it should be noted the Prism Award this year goes to trans activist Henry Tse, who proved you can fight city hall, so to speak. In 2017 Tse challenged the government’s draconian demand that trans people must undergo sex reassignment, or gender confirmation, surgery in order to indicate their true gender on ID card. It took six years but Tse, who also founded Transgender Equality Hong Kong, won. No small feat, to be sure.
Jason Karman’s Golden Delicious is the 2023 Centrepiece, and it is painfully Canadian – in a good way. Set in a super-white suburb of Vancouver (admittedly, most), teenaged Jake is juggling a pushy horned up girlfriend, a father who really wants him to take up basketball, which he doesn’t care for, and the usual hassles of being Asian in a white neighbourhood. But when out gay star basketball player Aleks moves in across the street the game is suddenly more appealing. This is a fairly rote coming-of-age rom-com in the vein of Love, Simon: sweet, charming and funny.
There’s a fair amount to choose from in the Asian Focus programme this year, with Onir’s barrier-smashing Pine Cone (India), a semi-autobiographical romance about a director getting a handle on his suddenly icy one night stand, set against a changing LGBTQ+ landscape; the coming-of-age road trip Egghead and Twinkie (Sarah Kambe Holland, USA); and the latest from Hong Kong-born Drift and Ethan Mao director Quentin Lee, Last Summer of Nathan Lee – literally about a terminally ill teen making the most of his last days – all on the bill. The stand-outs might be Tsuyoshi Shoji’s Old Narcissus and #Look at Me by Singaporean filmmaker Ken Kwek. In the former, a septuagenarian unable to deal with his fading beauty and a young sex worker embark on a complicated friendship born of nostalgia, non-normative sex practices and loneliness. And Kwek tackles the subjects at the thorny intersection of sexuality, religion, power and social media – and somehow manages to entertain.
The Panorama section, as always, features films from around the world, among them: Christoph Hochhäusler’s spy thriller Till the End of the Night from Germany; Punch, by Welby Ings from New Zealand, about a Maori boy and a boxer with a promising career navigating the waters of prejudice in seemingly tolerant society; and Milad Alami’s Opponent (Sweden), in which an Iranian refugee’s past comes back to haunt him, and which demonstrates how restrictive the double whammy of sexual and cultural identity can be. Opponent is also a showcase for veteran actor Payman Maadi (A Separation). But the most curious of the Panorama lot might be Chasing Chasing Amy by Sav Rodgers. Anyone who remembers the rom-com (starring Ben Affleck) about the comic nerd in love with a lesbian may also remember how “the right guy” got a woman who likes women to be his sexual partner. Ugh. But Rodgers saw the film as a middle schooler and in interviewing Smith and star Joey Lauren Adams created this doc, examining the film’s impact and re-contextualising its legacy. Culture Theory 101, right here.
Short films are always a good place to check out the next big thing, and this year’s programmes – Hong Kong Short Stories, International Queer Shorts: To My Family, International Girl Shorts: Spectrum of Life, International Boy Shorts: Happy Family, and International Boy Shorts: #NSFW – run the gamut from local dramedies about an average Hong Kong man learning to pole dance (Doris Lau Wing-man’s Happily Ever After), to erotic dramas about a Spanish man reconciling his sauna adventures with the rest of his life (Jose Provencio’s Picking You Up, Spain), and Sweet Forty, about a woman on the cusp of a milestone birthday finally coming out (Annlin Chao, UK). There are 25 more to choose from.
Finally, maybe in lieu of a filmmaker focus this year, HKLGFF is taking a minute to check out a corner of the world everyone else seems to enjoy ignoring (including HKIFF): Africa. Africa was pretty queer before it was colonised and taken from itself, so HKLGFF’s special mini-programme. From Africa With Love, includes two documentaries that shine a light on what’s happening – still happening – on the continent right now. With Uganda implementing fresh, lethal anti-LGBTQ laws recently – on March 21, 2023 FFS! – Rolando Cola and Josef Burri’s doc Out of Uganda is as timely as it is furious, chronicling the attempts by four young LGBT Ugandans to get the hell out of a country that won’t let them live safely as who they are. Similarly, Tünde Skovrán’s Who I Am Not explores gender identity and what that means in South Africa, a country with seriously old school ideas of gender and gender roles. Skovrán follows Sharon-Rose Khumalo, when “she” discovers she’s, in fact, intersex, and her relationship with male-presenting activist Dimakatso Sebidi.
That said, as much as everyone else would love to paint Africa as all war, poverty, slums and deserts all the time, that’s far from the case, and so All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White rounds out the programme. Director Babatunde Apalowo’s so not Nollywood romance pivots on the budding romance between photographer Bawa and delivery guy Bambino. Though it’s illegal (seriously, da fuq?) to be gay in modern Lagos, the pair hit it off and proceed to figure out if they’ll be able to express their connection despite societal disapproval. All the Colours walked off with this year’s Teddy Award at Berlin and is one of very, very few queer Nigerian films ever produced. Ever. Don’t miss it.
Hong Kong Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 34
Where: Broadway Cinematheque; MOViE MOViE Cityplaza; Palace ifc; Premiere Elements
Hours: September 8 to 23, Various times
Closed: N/A
Details: The Hong Kong Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, www.hklgff.hk