Take-5: 48th HKIFF ’24
Hey, how about we get switched on? It’s Hong Kong International Film Festival time, and it’s also time to turn a spotlight on its doc selections.
Documentaries are having a moment. Okay, sure, that may be because of limited series like HBO’s The Jinx and it’s “Gotcha!” moment, and the laundry list of Netflix docs about everything from Pepsi scams to the Fyre Festival clusterfuck, but complaining about more documentary for any reason is like complaining it was Harry Potter books that got people reading: Whatever it takes. HKIFF has been expanding its doc content for a little while, to the point of opening or closing with docs or putting them in the gala section (Elegies, the now-controversial To My Nineteen-Year-Old Self). “It’s great to see Hong Kong people coming around to what documentaries are, and what they can be,” says HKIFF programmer Geoffrey Wong. “I think people are looking at how they’re made rather than how ‘good’ they are. How do you look at a doc? What makes a good doc? That’s what we want people to think about.”
There are roughly 20 documentaries on tap this year, representing a diverse formal and thematic sampling – from Alina Simone’s (Navalny) chronicle of a woman in Siberia daring to speak out about pollution in the area under an authoritarian regime, to the march of biotechnology and the cost to the environment (Fauna), and films about films (Cinema Strada, Pictures of Ghosts). Because duh. Wong deadpans about the experimental Architecton, an observational doc, “About stone. It’s about rocks.” It’s actually about the enduring and simultaneously fragile nature of architectural concrete, from Ancient Greece to modern wartime ruins in Ukraine. Which proves Wong’s point that there’s more to docs than meets the eye. To whit, here are five that HKIFF programmers – Mimi Wong and Alvin Tse throw in some recommendations – think stand out, and one of ours.
HKIFF runs through April 8. For details on the other 175 non-documentary films and ticketing info head over to www.hkiff.org.hk.
obedience
| Director: Wong Siu-pong, Hong Kong |
Section: Firebird Awards: Documentary Competition
Director Wong Siu-pong drills down on Hung Hom and its baked-in contradictions, which arguably say as much about the city as any film can. Wong captures the dichotomies that define the ’hood: have and have-not, gleam and grime, life and death. “I’m familiar with the neighbourhood, so the way Wong observes it really hit me,” says Mimi Wong. “It’s thorough, and he sees all the issues in a place like this, the impact of regeneration and its poverty – yet it’s very spiritual. It’s detailed and sincere and Wong’s respect for the people he interviewed really shines through.”
I’m Not Everything I Want to Be
| Director: Klára Tasovská, Czechia/Slovakia/Austria | Section: Reality Bites
“I’m not sure how this one is going to land, but I love this film,” Wong continues of this doc about underrated photographer Libuše Jarcovjáková, a sort of Iron Curtain Nan Goldin, who snapped the marginalised in West Germany, the Prague Spring and the post-war changes in Europe. “[Jarcovjáková] photographed herself and the people around her, so the doc uses a lot those materials and photos to recreate her inner world and inner life. It’s much more than a slideshow. [Director Klára Tasovská] mixed in sound and Jarcovjáková’s narration, reflecting on herself, how women’s bodies change, her mentality and on the society she lived in. It’s really beautifully constructed.”
Intercepted
| Director: Oksana Karpovych, Canada/France/Ukraine
| Section: Firebird Awards: Documentary Competition
Kai-Fong’s pick is this Berlin special mention that paints a grim and infuriating portrait of the ongoing war in Ukraine, culled from intercepted phone calls from invading Russian soldiers to their families. It’s a terrifying, damning but entirely unsurprising tapestry of what Russian grunts are seeing on the ground, what Russian authorities want the public at home to see and the justifcations being fed to both. It’s also a dagger to the heart of the idea of a “thriving” Russia five-times “elected” president Vladimir Putin – the country’s longest serving leader since Stalin – would have everyone believe.
Black Box Diaries
| Director: Shiori Ito, Japan | Section: Firebird Awards: Documentary Competition
In 2015 budding reporter Shiori Ito was raped by well-regarded news veteran Noriyuki Yamaguchi, and as soon as Ito raised her voice it was systematically silenced when his buddies closed ranks; Yamaguchi was “acquainted” with then-prime minister Shinzo Abe. “[She] is herself a victim of sexual assault, so the film is her own version of trying to get justice and all the pressures and difficulties she comes across,” says Geoffrey Wong. “It’s a #MeToo doc in which she films herself the whole way. And it’s the most direct type of documentary filmmaking.”
Anselm (3D)
| Director: Wim Wenders, Germany | Section: Masters & Auteurs
“This my favourite film of the entire year. This is another level beyond Pina,” says Tse, referring to director Wim Wenders’s 2011 memorial to dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch. This time around Wenders turns his 3D camera on painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer, known for his unwavering commitment to interrogating Germany’s dark history. Immersive as well as illuminating, Anselm is one of those rare films that makes a convincing argument for its tech. “This is a collision between two very important artists, and how one artist sees another; how to present their work in a cinematic way. We all got tired of 3D, but Wenders makes it make sense.”