Happy Days: HKLGFF ’24
Against all odds, The region’s oldest LGBTQ+ film festival is back for a joyous 35th year.
[Updated Sep 2] Despite external pressures, dwindling cash resources and audiences that leave everything to the last minute, the Hong Kong Lesbian & Gay Film Festival (HKLGFF) is set and ready to go for its 35th edition. After getting back to business as usual last year, HKLGFF will unfold on the same shitty landscape it had to in 2023. With another restrictive Trump presidency threatening to make the world safe for bigotry, HKLGFF Festival Director and Art Director Joe Lam admits he accidentally put together a defiantly upbeat line-up for 2024. “There are plenty of movies about murder and suicide, and there are some of those on the programme, but the last thing you want when you leave a festival every time is to feel extremely upset,” begins Lam. “I wanted more positive energy. It’s a subconsciously happy festival this year.”
HKLGFF has 46 short, feature and documentary films from over 30 countries on tap this year, and Lam is particulary pleased with the strength of programme #35. “It was much easier [to compile] after COVID. There wasn’t a lot of film production during the pandemic and even after it production was down,” he says. “There was much more to watch this year – good stuff. I wanted to keep adding to the programme even though I knew we couldn’t have it all. It was a good struggle to have.”
It feels as if LGBTQ+ art is as heavily under attack as its people these days, something that’s reflected in the HKLGFF roster. There are were a whopping two local films on the slate this year: Scud’s Naked Nations – Tribe Hong Kong (above) was on deck until “technical issues” got it shitcanned a week before festival opening, and Jane Leung’s short film Landing on Ice, in the International Girl Shorts section. Lam brushes the idea that Hong Kong is underrepresented off as, unfortunately, entitrely normal.
“Shamefully we don’t have enough, but I think it’s always been quite low. How many LGBT films do you watch, in general, from Hong Kong each year?” he asks, citing, as is the case for most indie cinema in the city, commercial considerations and a dearth of investors. And in truth, the only high profile feature to get a release so far in 2024 has been Ray Yeung’s All Shall Be Well. “Short films are a little easier to produce, and we had an all-Hong Kong shorts programme the last two years. But the quality of the films needs to be high enough for that, for Hong Kong’s sake.”
Kicking off the fest are Leading Li’s The Time of Huan Nan from Taiwan (above right) and the Canada/Pakistan coproduction The Queen of My Dreams (left) by Fawzia Mirza. The former is a time-jumping melodrama about four friends who regularly hang out at the Huan Nan Market, tracking their lives over the years and asking questions about destiny and agency. In Mirza’s joyful, semi-autobiographical lesbian dramedy, queer Muslim Azra tussles, and finally reconnects, with her traditional mother Miriam when she heads home to Pakistan. There is a Bollywood angle to Queen, so strap in for some lush visuals. Centrepiece this year comes from Anthony Schatteman: Young Hearts (Netherlands/Belgium, below right) is a shamelessly sweet coming-of-age drama about a 13-year-old boy who learns to get a handle on himself, his emotions and his identity and not suffer for it. In a word it’s luminous.
Closing this year are Veit Helmer’s Gondola (Germany/Georgia) and Duino by Juan Pablo Di Pace and Andrés Pepe Estrada (Argentina/Italy, left). Gondola is a rom-com wherein a pair of cable car operators silently, and from a distance, flirt and fall for each other as they pass in their gondolas. There may be higher concepts for rom-coms, but Helmer leans into the whimsy of it all for maximum quirky charm. In Duino, co-writer, co-director and star Di Pace plays a director reflecting on an unrequited love as he struggles with a film that is as unfinished as that youthful romance.
The bulk of HKLGFF’s programme falls into the Asian Focus and Panorama sections, which this year include Keli’i Grace’s My Partner, where rival Hawaiian and Filipino highschoolers are partnered for a project and eventually overcome cultural and social divides. It’s set in Hawaii. ’Nuff said. Han Shuai’s Green Night (South Korea) co-stars Fan Bingbing and Lee Joo-young as a Chinese woman stuck in an abusive marriage of convenience and a young Incheon local embroiled with a vicious gang. It’s reminiscent of the Wachowski’s crime-noir-romance Bound, and Rose Glass’s more recent Love Lies Bleeding. Designer Tetsuya Chihara follows Tom Ford’s lead (kind of) with Ice Cream Fever, an adaptation of Mieko Kawakami’s short story about the intersecting desires and ambitions of four Tokyo women. On a personal note, Lam points to photographer Luke Gilford’s debut National Anthem, based on his first monograph, National Anthem: America’s Queer Rodeo – there will be cowboys – and Caden Douglas’s horror-comedy Mother Father Sister Brother Frank (Canada, right), as favourites. “I like dark comedy. I watched [Frank] cold and it made me laugh so much, but it was stressful too. Making people laugh is difficult, and if you like ‘smart’, this is a good one.” The film co-stars The Facts of Life’s Mindy Cohn. Natalie. What are you waiting for?
Not to be forgotten, Girl Shorts (with Leung's film, below left) is complemented by two International Boy Shorts programmes, and International Queer Shorts, specifically selected to give a platform to voices from genderqueer, non-binary and trans people, and anyone else who needs to be heard.
Indeed no HKLGFF would be complete without the festival stumping for something specific, and this year that’s Silver Screen Seniors, a sidebar of two films spotlighting LGBTQ+ elderlies. Before you go, “Ewwwww!”, Lam argues the blue rinse set has gone unheard for too long. “I saw these [films] and thought it was time to highlight a hidden part of the LGBT community,” he says. “You only see young kids in bars. Who are these older people? I also thought it was another lovely, positive message to send. And our audience is getting older. Maybe they don’t need another coming-of-age movie,” Lam adds with a laugh.
The films he’s talking abour are David Lambert’s Turtles (Belgium/Canada) and French director Alexis Taillant’s doc If I Die, It'll Be of Joy (below, left). Turtles tells the familiar story of a couple, together 35 years, and the stress retirement can have on a relationship, even one that committed. Does anyone need to fight for the right to simply be in their golden years? If I Die is a doc that asks that very question, and deals with sexuality and ageing head on through interviews with a trio of queer elders shamelessly revelling in love and pleasure way past 29.
Similarly under the radar are transgender men, which is where Jules Rosskam’s Desire Lines (USA, right) steps in. The docudrama tracks an Iranian-American trans man’s quest to understand his gender and his sexuality. The film also pushes back on accepted notions of identity as well as the idea that we need to “get it” right away. “Most media show us male-to-female transgender stories,” says Lam. “You rarely hear from the female-to-male perspective. This mixes in drama to give it a nice accessible touch, and it’s educational and enlightening.”
So where does HKLGFF go from here? How does it get another 35 years? Lam is doing his part and rolling fresh blood and younger voices onto the festival staff, but audiences need to support the event – queer and non. HKLGFF as a meeting place is as crucial as it ever has been. “Go out. Be visible. Accept who you are. I know it’s difficult, and there are still so many young people who come to the cinema and are afraid to present themselves as queer people; as themselves,” finishes Lam. “Come to the cinema and watch a gay film in the dark. It’s safe. I’ve heard stories of people reaching out the LGBT community because of the festival. I hope we can carry on that mission.” — DEK
35th Hong Kong Lesbian & Gay Film Festival
Where: Broadway Cinematheque; MOViE MOViE Cityplaza; Palace ifc; Premiere Elements
Hours: September 7 to 21, Various times
Closed: N/A
Details: The Hong Kong Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, www.hklgff.hk