Evans Chan’s timely new documentary ‘We Have Boots’ on movements for democracy and freedom in Hong Kong will premiere in US as closing film of Filmfest DC at Home on Friday, June 26 and available through Friday, July 3. We Have Boots had its World Premiere at International Film Festival Rotterdam, UK Premiere at Sheffield Doc/Fest and will screen in the Justice Matters section of Filmfest DC 2020.
Hong Kong is in the position of being both post-colonial and colonized, but the tenacious democratic aspirations of this semi-autonomous Chinese city astonished the world in the campaign for universal suffrage and human rights known as the Umbrella Movement of 2014, and again in the recent conflicts that drew two million people into the streets in 2019. Then the world moved on.
In this essential film, veteran director Evans Chan puts us back in the center of the action in harrowing street footage and in affecting portraits, in their own words, of the movements’ intellectual leaders and street combatants: determined, articulate, funny, less vulnerable than their masked or fresh faces would imply. They face imprisonment, exile, loss of positions, political disqualifications and police repression for their beliefs. But the future is theirs: the democracy movement may morph, but it won’t die. In the words of one movement founder, “Don’t think because you imprison all the roosters the sun won’t rise.”—Judy Bloch
Director Evans Yiu Shing Chan (www.evanschan.com) is a New York and Hong Kong-based critic, librettist and an independent filmmaker of more than a dozen fiction and documentary films, which have been screened at the Berlin, London, Moscow, Vancouver, AFI-Docs, and Taiwan Golden Horse film festivals, among others. His directorial debut To Liv(e) (1991) was listed by Time Out as one of the 100 Greatest Hong Kong Films. He was the librettist for the opera, Datong: The Chinese Utopia, which is based on his Datong: The Great Society, named Movie of the Year by Southern Metropolitan Daily in 2011. A critical anthology about his work, Postcolonalism, Diaspora, and Alternative Histories: The Cinema of Evans Chan was published by the HKU Press in 2015. We Have Boots and Umbrella Road are his latest films about Hong Kong’s democratic movement and ongoing protests. Both films were preceded by his acclaimed documentary, Raise the Umbrellas, which explores the 79-day Occupy/Umbrella Revolution of 2014. We Have Boots premiered in February at the 2020 Rotterdam International Film Festival.
Chan’s latest films also include Love and Death in Montmartre, which premiered at the 2019 Hamburg International Queer Film Festival as a Best Film nominee.
PLUS – Two Special “HONG KONG ON THE EDGE” FILMFEST DC Panels
Hong Kong On The Edge panels are co-presented with The Center for Globalization and Cultures of Hong Kong University
Hong Kong On The Edge: Actors and Observers Part 1
This panel will be available to stream for free starting Friday, June 26 at www.filmfestdc.org
Panelists:
Professor Ho-Fung Hung (Co-moderator) An expert on Hong Kong, China, and Sino-American relationships, and chair of the Sociology Department at Johns Hopkins University. His latest book is The China Boom: Why China Will Not Rule the World.
Benny Tai is an associate professor of Law at Hong Kong University, and an initiator of “Occupy Central with Peace and Love” which evolved into the Umbrella Movement of 2014. Also a prolific author, Professor Tai’s research areas include rule of law and legal culture, political legitimacy and constitutional development.
Alex Chow, a former Hong Kong student leader during the Umbrella Movement, and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee is now a PhD student at UC Berkeley.
Evans Chan, director of We Have Boots, is a New York and Hong Kong based critic, librettist and an acclaimed independent filmmaker of more than a dozen fiction and documentary films.
Tom Vick (Co-moderator) is the curator of film at the Freer & Sackler Galleries, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Asian Art. He is the author of several books on Asian cinema.
Hong Kong On The Edge: Actors and Observers Part 2
This panel will be available to stream for free starting Friday, June 26 at www.filmfestdc.org
Panelists:
Emily Lau was the first woman elected to the Hong Kong Legislative Council in direct elections. A popular politician, she promoted democratic human rights and equal opportunities in Hong Kong and in 2012 became the chairperson of the Democratic Party. She left her party positions in 2017 and returned to working as a television journalist.
Michael C. Davis is a former Hong Kong University law professor who recently led the 2020 report The Promise of Democratization in Hong Kong: Discontent and Rule of Law Challenges for the National Democratic Institute. Among his many affiliations, Mr. Davis is also a senior Research Scholar at the Weatherhead East Asia Institute at Columbia University, and a Professor of Law and International Affairs at India’s O.P. Jindal Global University.
Lawyer Antony Dapiran is a long term resident, and expert observer of dissent in Hong Kong. His writings have appeared in The Atlantic, New Statesman, Foreign Policy, and The Guardian, among many others. His most recent book is the highly regarded City on Fire: the Fight for Hong Kong which is considered an essential “guide to fight for the very soul of the city.”
Gina Marchetti (Moderator) is a Professor at Hong Kong University’s Comparative Literature Department and Director of the Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures. Her books include From Tian’anmen to Times Square: Transnational China and the Chinese Diaspora on Global Screens; Citing China: Politics, Postmodernism, and World Cinema and Yellow Peril: Race, Sex and Discursive Strategies in Hollywood Fiction.
Evans Chan, director of We Have Boots, is a New York and Hong Kong based critic, librettist and an acclaimed independent filmmaker of more than a dozen fiction and documentary films.