Dystopian Hong Kong independent film Ten Years will be screened at 30 different locations across the city on April 1 as part of a community initiative.
Ten Years is a dark socio-political fantasy that imagines what Hong Kong may look like in the year 2025. Five directors produced five shorts exploring a city where shops are attacked by uniformed army cadets for selling banned materials, where Mandarin is the dominant language, and where an activist self-immolates in a fight for Hong Kong’s independence.
The screenings begin at 7pm and will be followed by a one-hour online post-screening discussion with the director. So far, details for around ten of the public screenings have been announced, Apple Daily reported. The idea for the event originated from Ng Ka-leung, director of the movie’s “Local Eggs” short.
There are at least four screenings in Central and Western District hosted by different groups such as Sai Wan Concern and University of Hong Kong Starr Hall. Three will take place on Kowloon side at Mei Foo, City University of Hong Kong and Cheung Sha Wan, and four across the New Territories in Yuen Long, Kwai Chung, Tuen Mun and Sheung Shui.
In January, China’s state newspaper Global Times criticised the film as “ridiculous,” saying that it was spreading desperation. When the film was later selected as a candidate for best film by the 35th Hong Kong Film Awards, CCTV and Tencent notified the Hong Kong Film Awards Association that it will not broadcast this year’s event on television or online respectively.
The film was dubbed a “miracle” for its success despite a limited showing in cinema chains. It was made on a low budget of HK$500,000 but took over HK$6 million at cinemas according to latest figures at Box Office Mojo, a website owned by the international film site IMDB. Earlier, it was reported that the international distribution rights for the surprise hit were obtained by Golden Scene, a Hong Kong-based film distributor.
