Three Hong Kong activists who organised annual vigils commemorating Beijing’s 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square protests have been handed prison sentences of up to seven years. Two of the defendants – Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, and Chow Hang-tung, 41 – were convicted last month of inciting others to subvert state power, under the city’s controversial national
Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong’s first leader after the city returned to Chinese rule, has died at the age of 89. The former shipping scion took over the reins from the last British Governor Chris Patten in July 1997 when the UK handed Hong Kong back to China, ending more than 150 years of British control.
Korean sales house Finecut has closed a string of international deals for three festival titles, including Hong Sangsoo‘s Locarno prizewinner “Nowhere to Lay My Eyes,” ahead of the Toronto Film Festival. The film marks Hong’s 35th feature. It competed in the Concorso Internazionale at the 79th Locarno Film Festival and picked up three awards: the
The 31st Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) has unveiled its Carte Blanche lineup, featuring personal film selections from actor Fan Bingbing, director Kim Jeewoon and cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo. Carte Blanche, a French term meaning complete freedom of choice, invites prominent figures from film and culture to pick titles that shaped their own sensibilities and discuss
But now Zhu can sense this freedom being curtailed. She says she finds herself encountering authorities more often in Hong Kong than in mainland China. At one bookshop event, she recalls government officials entering the premises. “They just sat there listening alongside us.” Increasing raids have not only targeted explicitly political shops, according to a
Lee and Chow were also leaders of the now-defunct Hong Kong Alliance (HKA). The HKA was founded in May 1989 to support students holding pro-democracy rallies. Weeks later, the Communist Party crushed pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square with troops and tanks. Estimates of the death toll range from a few hundred to many thousands.
