30 June. 2pm-3:15 pm

with post-screening discussion

Raise the Umbrellas

Hong Kong｜2016｜26 min｜Color｜ HD
In Cantonese with Chinese & English Subtitles
Director: Evans Chan

‘Raise the Umbrellas’ (Work in Progress) is an exploration of Hong Kong's 2014 Umbrella movement through interviews with Occupy Central initiator Benny Tai; champions of the democratic camp, Martin Lee, "Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung, and Emily Lau, student leaders Joshua Wong, Vivian Yip and Yvonne Leung; pro-Beijing legislator Jasper Tsang, as well as activist pop icons Anthony Wong Yiu-ming and Denise Ho. This work-in-progress segment anticipates the complete film, in which veteran independent filmmaker Evans Chan places the Umbrella movement in its global and historical contexts (From "Occupy Wall Street to Occupy Central" and "From Tian'anmen 1989 to Umbrellas 2014"), while revealing the movement's human stories, utopian yearning, localist politics, and democratic struggles vis-a-vis a rising China.

Evans Yiu Shing CHAN (www.evanschan.com) is a critic, playwright, librettist and an independent filmmaker, who, said critic Tony Rayns, "has made a singular contribution to Hong Kong cinema and at the same time a major contribution to the whole spectrum of contemporary film-making." He has made four narrative features and eight documentaries, including Datong: The Great Society (2011), Sorceress of the New Piano (2004), and To Liv(e) (1991) -- named by Time Out Hong Kong as one of the 100 Greatest Hong Kong Films. Chan’s award-winning films have been shown at the Berlin, Rotterdam, London, Vancouver, Chicago, Moscow, Buenos Aires, and Taiwan Golden Horse film festivals, among many others. A contributor to Critique, Asian Cinema, Film International, Postmodern Culture, and various anthologies, Chan is the editor/translator into Chinese of three books by Susan Sontag. A critical anthology about his work, Postcolonalism, Diaspora, and Alternative Histories: The Cinema of Evans Chan (ed. Tony Williams) was published by the Hong Kong University Press in 2015. Chan obtained his PhD in Screen Culture at Northwestern University and lives between Hong Kong and New York.