ART AS A DISSIDENT FORM : RE-INVENTION OF LIVING MEMORY, HISTORY & IDENTITY
BLUE ISLAND X THE BATTLE OF ORGREAVE SCREEN TALK
I. PARALLEL SCREENINGS: “RESISTANCE, REENACTED IN HK & UK” IN MANCHESTER
DATE/TIME:
25 MARCH 2023 (SAT) 11:30-16:00
VENUE:
G12 CINEMA, SCHOOL OF DIGITAL ARTS (SODA), MANCHESTER METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY, MANCHESTER M15 6ED
MODERATOR:
DR WAYNE WONG (FILM SCHOLAR, LECTURER IN EAST ASIAN STUDIES)
PANELLISTS:
CHAN TZE WOON (DIR. OF BLUE ISLAND)
DR. ANDY WILLIS (FILM SCHOLAR, PROFESSOR OF FILM STUDIES AT UNIVERSITY OF SALFORD)
JJ CHAN (ARTIST AND FILMMAKER, SENIOR LECTURER IN FINE ART AT KINGSTON UNIVERSITY LONDON)
LANGUAGE:
ENGLISH, CANTONESE AND BRITISH SIGN LANGUAGE INTERPRETATION
Program rundown:
11:30-13:15: Blue Island
13:15-14:00: Lunch Break
14:00-15:00: The Battle of Orgreave
15:00-16:00: Panel Discussion
Co-organised by
Hong Kong Film Festival, UK
The School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield
The Manchester Metropolitan University
Screenings:
-Blue Island 憂鬱之島 (2022), 97 mins (Dir. Chan Tze Woon, HK)
-The Battle of Orgreave 歐格里夫抗爭事件 (2001), 60 mins (Dir. Jeremy Deller, UK)
Post-screening Panel discussion:
Reenactment is often used in documentaries to help retell the past more vividly. performative “act” appears to be a powerful medium to evoke critical reflection on historical events, because the re-experience can help transform the performers’ and the viewers’ understandings about different details of the events. Both films in this parallel-screening programs involve reenactment to reveal the resistance history in Hong Kong and the UK. While Blue Island weaves the stories of three different generations of Hongkongers who have participated in social movements to fight for values important to them, The Battle of Orgreave mainly captures one important confrontation during 1984’s Miners' Strike in South Yorkshire.
The current program invites the film director(s), film scholars and artists to have a post-screening panel discussion with audience members, to compare the different styles of applying the reenactment technique in documentaries, and also to think about how this art form help with our critical reflection on the civil resistance history in Hong Kong and the UK.
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Wayne Wong is a Lecturer in East Asian Studies in The University of Sheffield. He holds a joint PhD in Film Studies and Comparative Literature from King’s College London and the University of Hong Kong and has published in Asian Cinema, Global Media and China, and Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art. He is currently working with artists, curators, and filmmakers in the UK on Hong Kong-UK Diaspora.
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Chan Tze Woon is a Hong Kong-based director and writer. Born 1987 and raised in this city, his debut feature-length documentary Yellowing (2016) examined the Umbrella Movement, a large-scale civil occupation in 2014, exploring Hong Kong's fraught relationship with mainland China. Blue Island is Chan's second feature-length film.
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Andy Willis is Professor of Film Studies at the University of Salford. His most recent publications include: the forthcoming Women in East Asian Cinemas (co-edited with Felicia Chan and Fraser Elliott); DVD, Blu-ray and Beyond: Navigating Formats and Platforms within Media Consumption (2017, co-edited with Jonathan Wroot); Cult Media: Re-packaged, Re-released and Restored (2017, co-editor with Jonathan Wroot); Chinese Cinemas: International Perspectives (2016, co-edited with Felicia Chan); East Asian Film Stars (2014, co-editor with Wing Fai Leung). He is also currently a Senior Visiting Curator for Film at HOME Manchester, where he has curated and programmed a wide variety of film seasons and events.
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JJ Chan is an artist living and working in London. They were born in South Yorkshire to migrant parents from Hong Kong. Working across and amidst sculpture, moving image, and writing, their work draws from lived experience and stories stolen from eavesdropped conversations, to explore the edges of our everyday realities and the ways in which we construct our identities. Through storytelling and world-building, their work (re)searches for an alternative space beyond aggressively progressive capitalist time, seeking new worlds from the ashes of the present. Chan’s artworks are presented across a variety of platforms which include galleries, film festivals, nightclubs, house parties, and academic publications. They are currently Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Kingston University London.
II. PARALLEL SCREENINGS: “RESISTANCE, REENACTED IN HK & UK” IN LONDON
DATE/TIME:
26 MARCH 2023 (SUN) 14:00
VENUES:
GENESIS CINEMA, 93-95 Mile End Rd, Bethnal Green, London E1 4UJ
MODERATOR:
HYUN JIN CHO
PANELLISTS:
CHAN TZE WOON (DIRECTOR OF BLUE ISLAND)
JEREMY DELLER (ARTIST OF THE BATTLE OF ORGREAVE)
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH, CANTONESE AND BRITISH SIGN LANGUAGE INTERPRETATION
Program rundown:
14:00 Blue Island
15:40 Intermission
16:15 The Battle of Orgreave
17:20 Panel Discussion
Screenings:
Blue Island 憂鬱之島 (2022), 97 mins (Director Chan Tze Woon, HK)
The Battle of Orgreave 歐格里夫抗爭事件 (2001), 60 mins (Director Jeremy Deller, UK)
Post-Screening Panel discussion:
Reenactment is often used in documentaries to help retell the past more vividly. The performative “act” appears to be a powerful medium to evoke critical reflection on historical events, because the re-experience can help transform the performers’ and the viewers’ understandings about different details of the events. Both films in this parallel-screening programs involve reenactment to reveal the resistance history in Hong Kong and the UK. While Blue Island weaves the stories of three different generations of Hongkongers who have participated in social movements to fight for values important to them, The Battle of Orgreave mainly captures one important confrontation during 1984’s Miners' Strike in South Yorkshire.
The current program invites the film director(s), film scholars and artists to have a post-screening panel discussion with audience members, to compare the different styles of applying the reenactment technique in documentaries, and also to think about how this art form help with our critical reflection on the civil resistance history in Hong Kong and the UK.
-
Chan Tze Woon is a Hong Kong-based director and writer. Born 1987 and raised in this city, his debut feature-length documentary Yellowing (2016) examined the Umbrella Movement, a large-scale civil occupation in 2014, exploring Hong Kong's fraught relationship with mainland China. Blue Island is Chan's second feature-length film.
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Jeremy Deller (b. 1966 in London; lives and works in London) studied Art History at the Courtauld Institute and at Sussex University. Deller won the Turner Prize in 2004 and represented Britain in the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013. He has been producing projects over the past two decades which have influenced the conventional map of contemporary art. He began making artworks in the early 1990s, often showing them outside conventional galleries.
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Hyun Jin Cho is a Film Programmer for the BFI London Film Festival specialising in political film-making with a focus on ecological and post-colonial cinema. She has previously worked for the London Korean Film Festival and Artificial Eye and curated projects at cultural institutions and film festivals including Tate, ICA, Barbican, LUX, REDCAT and Il Cinema Ritrovato.