M+ Cinema Autumn Edition 2024

EVENT DESCRIPTION

M+, Asia’s global museum of contemporary visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong, announces the M+ Cinema Autumn Edition, presented from October to December 2024. 

Autumn Edition Highlights

M+ Cinema presents an innovative and diverse programme as part of the museum’s focus on local and global visual culture. In this Autumn Edition, the survey Tsui Hark, the Free-Spirited Trailblazer showcases twelve acclaimed works by the prominent Hong Kong filmmaker, together with an in-person conversation with Sylvia Chang. The new programme Avant-Garde Now: Performing for the Camera is a day-long exploration of cross-generational and cross-cultural performance art captured on film by Asian artists. The documentary Yellow Is Forbidden (2018) depicts the journey of China’s renowned couture artist Guo Pei in the cutthroat world of haute couture, in conjunction with M+’s new Special Exhibition Guo Pei: Fashioning Imagination. Additionally, the Stair in the Dark series at the museum’s Grand Stair inaugurates the new programme Dissonant Pleasures, which spotlights unconventional films that have energised and expanded our understanding of cinema culture, from unexpected hits to well-loved cult classics.

Details of the M+ Cinema Autumn Edition are as follows:

• Tsui Hark, the Free-Spirited Trailblazer

A tribute to Tsui Hark, this programme features twelve of his films and an engaging conversation between the director, actress, and filmmaker Sylvia Chang. One of the most influential directors of Hong Kong cinema, Tsui ignited the Hong Kong New Wave film movement with his debut feature The Butterfly Murders (1979). Since then, he has been making films consistently for more than forty-five years. He founded Film Workshop with esteemed producer Nansun Shi in 1984 to support the creativity of local film talents. Producing a number of successful films and television series in the 1980s and 1990s, including A Better Tomorrow (1986–1989), A Chinese Ghost Story (1987–1991), The Swordsman series (1990–1993), and Once Upon a Time in China(1991), Tsui has revived classics and launched new trends, elevating local film stars to the pantheon of pop culture.  

• Avant-Garde Now: Performing for the Camera

Conceived as a regular screening series of day-long events that explore tendencies in contemporary artists’ films, the inaugural edition of Avant-Garde Now: Performing for the Camera offers a deep dive into performance art on film. The programme showcases how Asian artists create at the intersection of performance and moving image, and features screenings, talks, and live performances by Eisa Jocson, Florence Lam, Melati Suryodarmo, and Kawita Vatanajyankur. Performing for the Camera explores the body’s relationship to spectacle, labour, capitalism, technology, endurance, vulnerability, and failure. The artists will share insights into the processes, inspirations, and intentions behind performative practices. 

• Special Screenings

Complementing the ongoing Special Exhibition I. M. Pei: Life Is Architecture, the documentary First Person Singular: I. M. Pei (1997) sees the renowned architect posing as a cheerful tour guide and leading the audience through his architectural masterpieces. Yellow Is Forbidden (2018), screened alongside the Special Exhibition Guo Pei: Fashioning Imagination, documents the triumphs and struggles of Guo Pei and her break into the prestigious but exclusive world of haute couture.

Creating dreamscapes based on known realities, Zhou Tao’s documentary approach to filmmaking and his unique artistic sensibility are encapsulated in two of his works: The Worldly Cave (2017) and The Periphery of the Base (2024). These documentaries will be screened in the Autumn Edition in conjunction with his newly commissioned work Jade Jadeite(2024), to be shown on the M+ Facade in autumn. More details about the commission will be announced at a later date. 

In the documentary The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (2006) and its sequel The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (2012), world-renowned Slovenian philosopher and cinephile Slavoj Žižek takes on the role of a presenter and brings audiences into the enigmatic world of cinema. He deciphers works by iconic filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock, David Lynch, and Andrei Tarkovsky, offering close readings of classics such as Alien (1979), Jaws (1975), Taxi Driver (1976), and A Clockwork Orange (1971). His investigation ties Karl Marx’s dialectical materialism and Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory to the history of cinema in amusing and witty narration.  Selected screenings will be followed by a talk with writer and film critic Long Tin, who will discuss Žižek’s perspective on cinema and ideology.

• Previews: Last Summer (2023) and Obedience (2024)

M+ Cinema showcases long-awaited previews of newly released films in Hong Kong. French provocateur Catherine Breillat offers another twisted tale of sexual entanglement in Last Summer (2023), which centres on the forbidden relationship between a successful lawyer and her troubled stepson. In Obedience (2024), documentary filmmaker Wong Siu-pong chronicles the working class of Hong Kong’s Hung Hom district with an observational style, inviting us to contemplate how the city has changed. 

• Fresh Eyes

This edition of Fresh Eyes ventures into the land of dinosaurs. Adapted from a documentary first aired on BBC, Walking with Dinosaurs (2013) follows Patchi, a Pachyrhinosaurus, as he traverses the Cretaceous landscape and protects his herbivore herd. Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur (2015) depicts a whimsical world where dinosaurs and humans coexist as a heartwarming tale of friendship and family unfolds. M+ Cinema offers screenings of both films in relaxed settings for children, with concession tickets priced at HKD 25.

• Rediscoveries

This recurring series brings back forgotten gems and restored classics. The morbid dynamic between two neighbours—an indulgent home cook and an anorexic writer—plays out in Park Chul-soo’s sensational 301 302 (1995), now restored and presented in 4K. Final Victory (1987) stars Eric Tsang and Tsui Hark as on-screen brothers who fall for the same woman, played by Loletta Lee. Here, director Patrick Tam turns Wong Kar-wai’s script into a highly stylised comedy with gangster flair. 

• Stair in the Dark

This programme inaugurates Dissonant Pleasures, a new monthly series spotlighting works overshadowed by the mainstream that have nevertheless made a lasting impact on cinema culture. A pioneer of found-footage horror, The Blair Witch Project (1999) unnerved audiences worldwide and redefined fear on a shoestring budget. Japanese enfant terrible Takashi Miike’s international breakthrough came with Audition (1999), a shocking tale of obsession and loss. Mary Harron’s American Psycho (2000) starred Christian Bale in a killer performance that has found new life in today’s meme culture.