M+ Cinema Summer Edition

EVENT DESCRIPTION

M+, Asia’s first global museum of contemporary visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong, is pleased to announce the M+ Cinema Summer Edition, presented from July to September 2024. 

Summer Edition Highlights

In this Summer Edition, M+ Cinema continues to offer enriching encounters with visual culture on screen. ‘Unseen Bonds: Family Portraits’ presents powerful and intimate perspectives on family relationships through the works of seven award-winning filmmakers. Documentary screenings and sci-fi classics are presented in dialogue with the M+ Special Exhibition I. M. Pei: Life Is Architecture, while another M+ exhibition, Henry Steiner: The Art of Graphic Communication, presented as part of the Pao-Watari Exhibition Series, is accompanied by a screening of two short films about the artists who inspired Henry Steiner. This edition also celebrates influential Japanese band Yellow Magic Orchestra with ‘Y.M.O.S.T.’, a programme of films featuring soundtracks by the individual members.

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

• Special Screening

Complementing the Special Exhibition I. M. Pei: Life Is Architecture, on view from Saturday, 29 June 2024, the Summer Edition features special screenings of two sci-fi classics that spotlight buildings designed by the renowned architect. Paul Verhoeven’s original RoboCop (1987) features the inverted pyramid-shaped Dallas City Hall as a high-tech corporate headquarters.Sleeper (1973) is set in the National Center for Atmospheric Research Mesa Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, where the protagonist, played by director Woody Allen, causes havoc in a dystopian future. Two documentary shorts about I. M. Pei’s work will precede the screenings of these two feature films.

This edition’s special screening also features cinematographer James Wong Howe’s The World of Dong Kingman (1954) and Lee Evan Caplin’s Andy Warhol: Made in China (1988), two short films about the artists who inspired Henry Steiner, the father of graphic design in Hong Kong. These screenings will accompany the retrospective Henry Steiner: The Art of Graphic Communication, on view at M+ from 15 June 2024 as part of the Pao-Watari Exhibition Series.

• Unseen Bonds: Family Portraits

Featuring works from seven award-winning filmmakers from across the world, this thematic programme presents moving portrayals of familial bonds and the entanglement between truth, belief, and fiction. It explores different contexts that define the notion of family and the ways in which these stories are told on screen. Ranging from direct observational documentaries such as Wang Bing’s Three Sisters (2012) and Abbas Kiarostami’s Homework (1989) to Richard Linklater’s masterpiece Boyhood (2014), a narrative film a decade in the making, the programme complicates the relationship between camera, filmmaker, subject, and viewer, while highlighting how cinema gives universal resonance to personal stories.  

• Previews: Love Lies (2024) and Art College 1994 (2023)

M+ Cinema showcases long-awaited previews of local and foreign films. In Ho Miu-ki’s Love Lies (2024), hilarity ensues as a lovelorn obstetrician, portrayed by Sandra Ng, meets a young con artist, played by Cheung Tin-fu, on a dating app. Chinese animation director Liu Jian takes inspiration from his own experiences in Art College 1994 (2023), showing witty conversations between art school students voiced by Chinese film personalities Zhou Dongyu, Jia Zhangke, and Bi Gan.

• Fresh Eyes

This edition of ‘Fresh Eyes’ calls for dog lovers of all ages. 101 Dalmatians (1996) by Stephen Herek, a live-action adaptation of the titular Disney cartoon classic, features Glenn Close in a terrifying, dot-obsessed hunt for Dalmatian puppies. Tim Burton pays homage to the iconic Frankenstein with his 3D stop-motion animation Frankenweenie (2012). The film features an outcast student reviving his dead pet dog, but things do not go as expected. M+ Cinema offers screenings of both films in relaxed settings for young children, with concession tickets priced at just HKD 25.

• Afterimage

This season of ‘Afterimage’ complements the thematic programme ‘Unseen Bonds: Family Portraits’ by exploring experimental film portraits. Iranian American artist Shirin Neshat’s Dreamers trilogy (2013–2016) navigates the world of dreams through three female subjects, each of whom are projections of the artist’s personal nightmares and dreamscapes. Wang Bing’s cinematic portrait Man with No Name (2009) observes the life of a cave dweller in an unnamed, remote part of China and proposes an alternative narrative of contemporary life. Kelvin Kyung Kun Park’s documentary Army (2018) interweaves the story of a young man’s mandatory military service in Korea and Park’s reflection on his own enlistment a decade prior.

• Makers and Making

Featuring intimate and insightful documentaries, ‘Makers and Making’ invites audiences into the most creative minds of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Peter Rosen’s First Person Singular: I. M. Pei (1997) celebrates Pei’s ambition, creativity, and talent, and highlights his commitment to forge his own path and continually refine his craft. The charismatic Pei poses as a cheerful tour guide and leads the audience through his architectural masterpieces, like the Louvre Pyramid in Paris, the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong, and the Miho Museum in Japan’s Shiga prefecture. A post-screening talk by Shirley Surya, Curator, Design & Architecture, M+, will follow. 

Also featured in ‘Makers and Making’ is Dunet Chan Sheung Shing’s Still Life (2024). In this new documentary, Hong Kong painter Yeung Tong Lung, whose works are in the M+ Collections, finds solace and purpose in capturing the fleeting beauty of everyday life. The documentary combines naturalistic cinematography and intimate interviews to explore the artist’s personal struggles, creative process, and desire for human connection.  

• Rediscoveries

‘Rediscoveries’ is a recurring series that brings back forgotten gems and restored classics. A restored version of Nam Nai Choi’s gut-spilling cult film Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1991) returns to the big screen as martial arts hero Louis Fan makes sure all his fellow inmates return home. In the radical and intense Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974 (1974), documentary master Kazuo Hara follows the eventful life of his ex-wife Miyuki as she pursues new relationships in 1970s Okinawa.

• Stair in the Dark

‘Stair in the Dark’ presents ‘Eye Tunes’, an ongoing film series featuring musical films amplified by unforgettable melodies and captivating scores. Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989), one of the most important American films ever made, ushers in the era of hip-hop amid a hot New York summer. An ensemble of Cuban music legends serenades the audience with soulful tunes and enchanting vocals in Wim Wenders’s documentary Buena Vista Social Club (1999). In Para Para Sakura (2001) by Jingle Ma, Aaron Kwok and Cecilia Cheung take us on a wacky romantic journey backed by Para Para dances and addictive beats.  

• Y.M.O.S.T.

The Summer Edition celebrates Yellow Magic Orchestra with ‘Y.M.O.S.T.’, a programme of films featuring soundtracks by the three members of this influential Japanese band. Haruomi Hosono found his groove in Gō Takamine’s Okinawan classic Paradise View (1985). Yukihiro Takahashi composed and acted in Nobuhiko Obayashi’s screwball comedy April Fish (1986), while Ryuichi Sakamoto reunited with Nagisa Ōshima for the star-studded samurai thriller Gohatto(1999).