20th New York Asian Film Festival

Aug 6-22, 2021

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Photo: © Golden Scene Company Limited

New York Premiere

Keep Rolling

好好拍電影

This amiable, intimate portrait of legendary filmmaker Ann Hui, the NYAFF 2021 Star Asia Lifetime Achievement Award honoree, celebrates the life, career, and independent spirit of a brilliant, pioneering artist who is also the ultimate Hong Konger. Director Man Lim Chung, a frequent Hui collaborator, expertly deploys a wealth of archival images and interviews with friends, family, and a who’s who of film-industry stalwarts. But the vibrant, unfiltered Hui herself is our guide, captured while making Our Time Will Come (2017) at the age of 70, while at home with her elderly mother, and in the public eye. The chain-smoking, wisecracking, incessantly working, eternally enthusiastic filmmaker candidly discusses her tumultuous 40-year career; recalls her discovery, at the age of 16, that her mother was Japanese; and confesses to her ongoing love affair with books (“if film is my spouse, then literature is my mistress”). A must-see not only for Hui devotees, but for lovers of film everywhere.

Director: Man Lim Chung
Cast: Ann Hui (VIRTUAL)
Languages: Cantonese, Mandarin with traditional Chinese & English subtitles
2020; 111 min.

SCHEDULE:

Tuesday August 10, 6:00pm
Film at Lincoln Center's Virtual Cinema

AVAILABLE: Aug 10, 6:00 PM - Aug 15, 6:00 PM

Variety Star Asia Lifetime Achievement Award
Ann Hui (VIRTUAL)
許鞍華

Legendary filmmaker Ann Hui will be the recipient of the Variety Star Asia Lifetime Achievement Award. One of the most critically acclaimed Hong Kong New Wave filmmakers, she has created work of great sensitivity, focusing on themes of cultural displacement, family conflict, and female perspectives over the course of her four-decade career. In her honor, NYAFF will be showcasing her early masterwork, The Story of Woo Viet, starring Chow Yun-fat and now celebrating its 40th anniversary, and Boat People, a work of searing political resonance. We will also be screening Man Lim Chung’s insightful, delightful portrait of the inimitable Hui, Keep Rolling.

Born in Liaoning province, northeastern China, but raised in Hong Kong, director, producer, and screenwriter Ann Hui made her feature debut with The Secret in 1979, which was nominated for the Golden Horse Award (GHA) for Best Feature Film. She went on to create such indelible titles as The Story of Woo Viet (1981), Boat People (1982), Song of the Exile (1990), Ordinary Heroes (1999), The Way We Are (2008), Night and Fog (2009), A Simple Life (2011), The Golden Era (2014), Our Time Will Come (2017) and Love After Love (2020).

Hui has won numerous awards for her films, including the GHA for Best Director three times (1999, 2011, 2014) and Best Director at the Hong Kong Film Awards six times (1983, 1996, 2009, 2012, 2015, 2018). In 2020, she became the first female director to be honored with the Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement Award at the Venice Film Festival. Hui served as the president of the Hong Kong Film Director’s Guild from 2004 to 2006. In 2007, she was invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).