What UK films have been selected at this year’s Hong Kong International Film Festival?

The Hong Kong International Film Festival Society Limited (HKIFFS) is a charitable, non-profit and non-governmental organisation dedicated to discovering and promoting creativity in film art and culture.  It organises the Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF) and the Hong Kong – Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF). The 47th edition in 2023 will take place between 30 March and 10 April.

War Pony (2022)

Director: Gina Gammell, Riley Keough
Cast: Jojo Bapteise Whiting, Ladainian Crazy Thunder
USA, UK / 2022 / English / 115 minutes / DCP / Colour

While shooting American Honey, actress Riley Keough befriended two Native American men who worked as extras in the film. Over several years, Keough and Gammell worked with them to bring their experiences to the screen. The result is this Cannes Camera d’Or-winning drama, an eye-opening and honest look into the lives of Native Americans through the perspectives of two young men – an entrepreneurial hustler in his 20s and a streetwise 12-year-old with an abusive father – as they fight to overcome their harsh circumstances.

1/4 (Sat): Post-talk (in Cantonese) with guest filmmaker Jun Li

My Name is Alfred Hitchcock (2022)

Director: Mark Cousins
UK / 2022 / English / 120 minutes / DCP / Colour

Mark Cousins revisits Hitchcock’s entire filmography and the result is an innovative guided tour of the director’s work in terms of themes and motifs, images and ideas ‘written and voiced’ by none other than the master od suspense himself. Or so it claims – rather, Cousins cheekily engages impressionist Alistair McGowan to narrate his own commentary on the maestro’s oeuvre from ostensibly the first-person perspective of Hitch looking back at his work. Cousins’ exploration is ultimately as much about the films of Hitchcock as his philosophy of cinema, its insightful observations illustrated through a typically incisive selection of clips.Mark Cousins’s Italian film The March on Rome (2022) is also in the selection.

Aftersun (2022)

Director: Charlotte Wells
Cast: Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio, Celia Rowlson-Hall
UK, USA / 2022 / English / 101 minutes / DCP / Colour

A strobing dancefloor invokes memories of the late 90s. 11-year-old Sophie is vacationing at a Turkish beach resort with her remarkably young father, Calum. Their bond is loving, but under it simmers the unspoken distance between parent and child: a sadness. As Sophie wanders the resort and meets older kids, Calum’s interior life is brought into focus by a lifetime of remembering. Charlotte Wells’ acclaimed debut is a beguiling tactile and vulnerable exploration of memory: a summoning of the unknowable lives of those who raise us, or fail to.7/4 (Fri): Post-talk (in Cantonese) with guest filmmaker Oliver Chan