Introduction Hong Kong Independent Cinema in the Post-Handover Era

Introduction Hong Kong Independent Cinema in the Post-Handover Era

Hong Kong independent cinema has gained more and more currency in both academia and film production and reception circles since the 1997 handover. The term “independent cinema” is frequently invoked in critical discourse and film festival programming; it suggests a distancing from the mainstream film industry in terms of styles, genres, and modes of production, distribution, and financing. Independent filmmakers can be auteurs with greater control over the subject matter and aesthetic choices compared with their mainstream counterparts. Still, creative autonomy is never absolute and may come with a trade-off between the filmmaker's convictions and the need to reach a wider audience. Filmmakers have to play by the emerging rules of independent cinema. Dynamic and ambivalent exchanges between independent and mainstream cinema are constantly at play in Hong Kong when independent filmmakers (or films) enter mainstream production and circulation. To call attention to the bourgeoning independent film scene and fledgling, relatively unrecognized filmmakers in post-millennial Hong Kong, my colleagues and I have recently put together the first Chinese-language monograph on this subject, Xianggang duli dianying tujing: fangwen pinglun ji (Indiescape Hong Kong: Critical Essays and Perspectives) (Tam, Lee, and Ng). Our project interweaves critical scholarship in film studies with in-depth interviews with individual filmmakers in order to foster linkages between academic work and first-hand personal accounts.