2022-02-25

The College of Liberal Arts at National Sun Yat-sen University will organize an event as part of the “At the Foothills of the College of Liberal Arts” series, reaching out off-campus with the knowledge of humanities. The College of Liberal Arts is collaborating with in89 Pier-2 Cinema for the first time, organizing a discussion on February 26th at 16:00 that will follow the screening of the film “Revolution of Our Times: a film by Hongkongers” at 13:00. Invited speakers will discuss about this important documentary in some depth from various perspectives in humanities.

According to the College of Liberal Arts, the roundtable discussion will be moderated by Associate Professor Chia-Lun Tu of the Department of Chinese Literature. Three speakers will engage in the discussion, a well-known non-fiction literary writer Hui Chen Fang, Assistant Professor of NSYSU Institute of Philosophy Jacky Tai, and Assistant Professor Pei-Hsuan Lai of NSYSU Department of Chinese Literature. They will analyze the documentary from different points of view, namely nonfiction writing, political philosophy and literary studies, discourse and action, respond in their own ways to the ideals, emotions, discourses and actions embodied by the social movement in Hong Kong, and reflect on the relationship between images, narratives, and social movements, with the hope of having reverberations in the public.

The documentary "Revolution of Our Times: a film by Hongkongers” has won the Best Documentary at the 58th Golden Horse Awards for creating the most faithful visual record of the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement. The film director went to the frontline of the struggles to record the perspectives of seven different groups of protesters in this movement, including the journalists and the social workers who were brutally assaulted, an old farmer taking care of the young protestors, the drivers bringing the protesters home, the voluntary first-aiders outside the blockade line, the valiant university students firing petrol bombs, and the secondary school students who left letters expressing their last will. The whole film presents the historical background of this magnificent and adaptable movement, drawing a portrait of the Hong Kong protesters. The documentary is not only a documentation of the protests of Hongkongers but also a testimony of the people who fight for democracy and freedom through revolution in a difficult time like ours. It represents a love letter written in the protestors’ blood and tears to their “homeland” during the last days of Hong Kong. Therefore, it is also dedicated to anyone who upholds his conscience and righteousness, and has shed tears for Hong Kong.

Associate Professor Chia-Lun Tu of the Department of Chinese Literature anticipates that writer Hui Chen Fang will share her views on "Revolution of Our Times", with reference to two previous documentaries about the same subject "Taking back the Legislature" and "Inside the Red Brick Wall", as well as her experience of interviewing protesters on site during the 2014 Umbrella Movement and the 2019 Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement. She will discuss the real-life scenes and landscape of the movements in Hong Kong in recent years. Then Assistant Professor Jacky Tai will analyze the documentary from both aesthetic and political perspectives; aesthetics is concerned with the ways in which film art represents reality, while the political perspective focuses on explaining the causes and consequences of the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement. In the end, Assistant Professor Pei-Hsuan Lai will focus on the relation between literary narratives and social movements and examine the ways in which several literary works related to the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement reflect the political reality through the prism of the imageries and memories of Hong Kong with the hope of appreciating the visual presentation of the "Revolution of Our Times" in relation to the literary scenes.

The roundtable discussion “To Hong Kong: thoughts on the Revolution of Our Times” will be held on Saturday, February 26, 2022, at 16:00 at in89 Pier-2 Cinema, following the screening of the film “Revolution of Our Times: a film by Hongkongers” at 13:00 in the same venue. Everyone is welcome to attend the screening and participate in the discussion. 

Tickets (in89 Pier-2 Cinema): https://reurl.cc/7eY17Q