The Odyssey of Sinophone Cinema Opens with Four Trails

I first met Dr Hiu Man Chan, the Director of UK China Film Collab, as a fellow panellist at the BFI, and have admired their project and goals ever since, so was delighted this week, to have the pleasure of attending the opening of one the NGO’s projects, the Odyssey Film Festival.

Its home this year, The Everyman Broadgate, is tucked away in a complex at the heart of London’s EC1, surrounded by austere corporate buildings, and were it not for the velvet roped backdrop, I’d have mistaken it for some swanky city bar. I arrived, in my usual cloud of fluster, double guessing directions, wondering whether I’d overdressed in response to the “creative” dress code, but made it in time to find an equally anxious Dr Chan, doing her best to look after every guest. The moment I reached the reception, she fluttered over to greet me, before bouncing away to the next guest, and again, repeating the ritual throughout the evening, letting us all know she was never far away.

The refreshments poured generously from the kitchen, in the best tradition of Chinese hosting, with simple and tasty bites being proffered every few minutes. Circulating the room, the fellow guests seemed to be an interesting and eclectic mix of of writers like myself, directors and students. It was lovely meeting the Japanese writer Noriko Barrow, who told me about her curation of Tanka poetry, her own poems, and how she met her husband, the UK-China bridgebuilder Martin Barrow. I also found myself chatting with some of Dr Chan’s students from around the world who spoke enthusiastically about their studies in Cultural Events Management and how some experiences have completely changed their outlooks. I was very lucky to speak with Malaysian director Tan Chi Mui, whose multiple works are exhibiting in this year’s programme, including her feature Barbarian Invasion, which stood out to me when I initially saw the whole line-up. We spoke about female narrative perspectives in fiction and film. After some general jollification and cheerleading from our host, and pleasant short speeches from the festival director, sponsors and the opening film’s director Robin Lee, we sank into the Everyman’s comfortable sofa seating for the award-winning documentary Four Trails.

As a culture writer, who focusses on the arts and humanities, and with no particular interest in sports and athletics beyond my own light jogging, I had few expectations of the film beyond those of a seasoned viewer of Asian cinema. I was pleased to find myself engrossed, not so much in the challenge of the Trials themselves, but seeing a variation in modern Hong Kong from the glassy towers and crowded shopping streets customarily associated with the city – the mountains and islands, which, when staying with relatives there, I had always been interested in, but dissuaded from exploring by their “Peak Mentality”.

Read the rest of the article here.

 


Posted in Events and tagged , , ,