M+ Cinema Autumn Edition 2023

EVENT DESCRIPTION

Autumn Edition Highlights

M+ Cinema offers diverse viewing experiences and enriching encounters with visual culture. The retrospective ‘Devil in the Details: The Cinema of Park Chan-wook’ features cutting-edge works by illustrious Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook as well as a masterclass. ‘Genre, Period’ presents a selection of female-forward horror films that explore the turbulence and exuberance of pubescent womanhood. This edition’s ‘Previews’ showcases the Hong Kong premiere of Amiko, an international film festival hit, and Elegies, the latest documentary by Ann Hui. Recurring series ‘Rediscoveries’ brings back overlooked cinematic gems, including female-led gangster film classic A Better Tomorrow III: Love and Death in Saigon.

Details of the M+ Cinema Autumn Edition

Devil in the Details: The Cinema of Park Chan-wook
‘Devil in the Details: The Cinema of Park Chan-wook’ takes a retrospective look at the iconic career of Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook. Featuring his most important works and a masterclass by the director, the programme marks the first time M+ Cinema is spotlighting a major Asian auteur. It traces the origins of the Korean New Wave, fostering a new dialogue between the moving image histories of Hong Kong and South Korea.

The programme will screen eight feature films by Park, best known for his daring, sensual, and often violent takes on genre cinema. Park’s earlier hits will be on view, including Joint Security Area (2000), which was one of the first major successes during the South Korean film renaissance in the early 2000s. ‘The Vengeance Trilogy’, comprising the neo-noir thriller Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), the Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix awardee Oldboy (2003), and the bloody conclusion Lady Vengeance (2005) will be screened in marathon sessions. Also featured in this programme are I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK (2006), a romantic comedy set in a surreal psychiatric hospital, Thirst (2009), a vampiric horror story, and The Handmaiden (2016), a ravishing crime drama. For The Handmaiden, M+ Cinema will present an extended cut with over twenty minutes of footage not included in the original theatrical release. Park’s most recent thriller, Decision to Leave (2022), which earned him Best Director at last year’s Cannes, will also be screened at M+ Cinema.

Major highlights include a masterclass by the auteur, not to be missed by aspiring filmmakers and cinema fans. M+ Cinema also offers free screenings of selected short films from Park’s extensive oeuvre.

Genre, Period
This coming-of-age series features mind-bending and visceral female-forward works by three creative filmmakers: French-Belgian body horror Raw (2016) by Palme d’Or-winning director Julia Ducournau, Canadian supernatural horror Ginger Snaps (2000) by John Fawcett, and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014), presented as ‘the first Iranian Vampire Western’, by Ana Lily Amirpour. Each screening is paired with an animated short film about menstruation, complementing the films’ depictions of emotional and physical frustrations of girls as they transition into adulthood.

Previews: Amiko (2022) and Elegies (2023)
Japanese director Yusuke Morii’s feature film debut Amiko (2022) depicts an eccentric young girl who is often misunderstood by her family and classmates. This heartwarming and precocious new film will make its Hong Kong premiere at M+. Ann Hui interviews several local poets in her latest documentary Elegies (2023), which delves into the nature of poetry and the sources of their inspiration.

Special Screening
To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Phoenix Cine Club, M+ Cinema will present Polish master Jerzy Skolimowski’s Deep End (1970) to pay homage to the cinema club’s mission to introduce foreign art films to Hong Kong in the 1970s. Director Isabel Wong’s documentary Pai Niang Niang: The Last Osmanthus Blossom (2023) incorporates remastered lost recordings of a 1972 musical produced by Rebecca Pan, miraculously unearthed this April. Kim Dong-ryung’s award-winning American Alley (2008) explores the cyclical reality of local women of the past and migrant workers of the present near a US military base in South Korea, and will be screened for free with a post-screening talk with the director.

Afterimage
This season’s ‘Afterimage’ offers a selection of self-reflexive documentaries that blur the lines between fiction and non-fiction. Foregrounding different types of essay films, it features Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil (1983), a foundational work of the genre that takes viewers on a free-wheeling journey from Africa to Japan, and Linda Chiu-han Lai’s 10957 Moons and 30 Elliptical Years (2022), an eight-part collage of events, objects, thoughts, and sensations. Also featured are Hito Steyerl’s november (2004), a visual investigation into the power of images in revolutions, and Lovely Andrea (2007), which extrapolates from ideas of bondage and domination to explore identity, popular culture, and politics.

Makers and Making
Investigating the personalities and stories behind different creative practices, this edition of ‘Makers and Making’ highlights visual artists. China’s Van Goghs (2016) by Haibo Yu and Kiki Tianqi Yu traces a migrant worker’s transnational journey reproducing Vincent van Gogh’s paintings for the global market. Marcie Begleiter’s Eva Hesse (2016) captures the brilliant yet tragic life of post-war German American artist Eva Hesse and her delicately transgressive sculptures and paintings.

Fresh Eyes
This recurring series brings family-friendly content to M+. Viewers are invited to soar with migrating birds in Winged Migration (2001) by Jacques Cluzaud, Michel Debats, and Jacques Perrin, or they can go on a thrilling chase with The Great Detective Sherlock Holmes – The Greatest Jail-Breaker (2019) by Toe Yuen and Matthew Chow. Children’s tickets are only HKD 25.

Rediscoveries
This edition of ‘Rediscoveries’ brings back forgotten gems and restored classics to M+ Cinema. Japanese New Wave auteur Masahiro Shinoda’s Pale Flower (1964) is a starkly nihilistic film noir set with an enigmatic young woman at the centre of the story. A Better Tomorrow III: Love and Death in Saigon (1989) by Tsui Hark is an underrated prequel to the beloved A Better Tomorrow series. The movie depicts a fearless heroine, who is portrayed by Anita Mui, leading a cousin duo (Chow Yun-fat and Leung Ka-fai) through the turmoil of the Vietnam War, making it an unconventional female-led gangster film classic.

Screen Encounters
This biannual programme invites artists and filmmakers to share works that have been profoundly influential in shaping their career and practice. This edition spotlights China-born, New York–based artist Cici Wu. Wu will present her work Unfinished Return of Yu Man Hon (2019) from the M+ Collection, in dialogue with four works by other local and international artists. The screening will be followed by an in-person conversation with Wu, who will share the significance of these works to her artistic journey.

Stair in the Dark
‘Stair in the Dark’ presents ‘Eye Tunes’, a new ongoing series featuring films with unforgettable music or captivating scores. Loosely based on real figures of the 1970s British rock scene, Velvet Goldmine (1998) by Todd Haynes investigates the rise and fall of a superstar in an era of utter glamour and decadence. In The Lure (2015) by Agnieszka Smoczyńska, a pair of bloodthirsty yet innocent mermaid sisters enter the dazzling nightlife of 1980s Poland as cabaret singers. Director Jacques Demy’s wacky fairytale musical Donkey Skin (1970) features Catherine Deneuve as a princess who dons a magical donkey skin and goes on a peculiar journey to escape from an incestuous marriage with the king.