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This presentation has English subtitles.
Hong Kong2021112 minCantonese with English subtitlesOntario PremiereDrama
Deep in the night, Fai and his friends are sleeping on the streets of Sham Shui Po, the poorest district in Hong Kong. The police arrive without notice and clear out their belongings, their makeshift homes reduced to roadside trash. With the help of social worker Ms. Ho, Fai takes the case to court, while he and his friends struggle to create a new home.
Based on a true story from 2012, Drifting sharply observes Hong Kong’s inequalities and injustices. Shot during the 2019 protests, without directly mentioning them, the film has clear resonances with its social milieu. Featuring stellar performances by Hong Kong actors new and old, including veteran actor Francis Ng and rising star Cecilia Choi, Drifting is a quietly raging film about dispossession, justice, and the right to live in an unlivable world.
- Ron Ma
Francis Ng
Cecilia Choi
Loletta Lee
OFFICIAL SELECTION
International Film Festival Rotterdam, 2021
Hong Kong International Film Festival, 2021
Far East Film Festival, 2021
Jun Li
Jun Li studied journalism in Hong Kong and gender studies at Cambridge. In 2017, his short film Liu Yang He won the Fresh Wave Award and Best Director at the Fresh Wave International Short Film Festival. He made his feature-directing debut with Tracey in 2018, which received nine Hong Kong Film Awards nominations, and followed it up with Drifting. Li has also been a reporter, a playwright, an actor, an essayist, and a film critic.
Desh Pardesh ended in 2001, in large part due to a massive cut in public arts funding. Two decades later, organizers and artists from the festival discuss the impact of the festival and the ways in which we can learn from the success and challenges of running an unapologetic and political arts festival in the city of Toronto.
Spanning over a decade from 1984 to 1996, Shooting Indians: A Journey with Jeffrey Thomas is a portrait of Jeffrey Thomas, a self-described “Urban Iroquois” photographer, exploring the influences on his life that led him to his career.
It starts simple enough. In town on a stopover, years after she transitioned, Kris is meeting her college ex-girlfriend Naomi again for the first time. But seeing an ex is never simple. As the evening unfolds, the past inevitably creeps back into their conversations.