North American Premiere of DRIFTING PETALS 花果飄零 +
Conversation with Director Clara Law 羅卓瑤
Saturday, 20 January 2024
14:00-16:00 PST (screening); 16:00-17:00 PST (virtual conversation)
Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema
(3/F Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 West Hastings Street, Vancouver)
Parking/Public tranport | Map
Join us for the North American Premiere of DRIFTING PETALS 花果飄零, followed by a virtual conversation with Director Clara Law 羅卓瑤 and producer/writer Eddie Fong 方令正. Shot in Australia, Hong Kong and Macau, DRIFTING PETALS is the latest work by critically-acclaimed director Clara Law who won the Best Director Award in the Golden Horse International Film Festival 2021 . Made over 5 years, the bold feature explores the possibility of alternate cinema, and invites the viewers to ponder on diaspora, home, and memory. The creators called the film a “eulogy in memory of the city”.
This is a spotlight event to inaugurate the Asian Independent Cinema Showcase and is co-organized by the Hong Kong Studies Initiative, University of British Columbia, and the Institute for Transpacific Cultural Research, Simon Fraser University.
The film is in Cantonese with English subtitles, and the conversation will be conducted in English. This is a free of charge, in person event. Seats are limited. Registration required.
About DRIFTING PETALS:
Directed by Clara Law | Written by Clara Law & Eddie Fong
Cantonese | English subtitles | 110 mins | 2021 | Colour | Drama
Synopsis:
She, the filmmaker, first met Jeff in Australia, a piano student who came to study music, and took him to see “The Walls of China”. She met him in Hong Kong three years later. He told her of his insomnia since his return from his performance master course in Manchester, and the people he came across when he went to the “umbrella movement” sites to pay his tribute. Night after sleepless night he met different people that were involved one way or other with the movement and got tangled up with their lives, among them a young girl who could see the dead. As she listened, the memories of her long lost brother flooded back and she went back to Macao to look for her childhood home which she couldn’t find and instead came face to face with a teenager who seemed to be her long disappeared big brother. The stories of these two people merged as they met with the living and the dead, she looking for answer to an unsolved mystery that had scarred her for life and he trying to make peace with an uncertain future.
Trailer: English version | Chinese version
Festivals participation:
- Sydney International Film Festival
- Golden Horse International Film Festival
- Rotterdam International Film Festival
About Director Clara Law:
Law graduated from the University of Hong Kong in English Literature and studied film at the National Film School, England, winning the Silver Plague Award (Chicago Film Festival) with her graduation film THEY SAY THE MOON IS FULLER HERE. Returning to Hong Kong she crafted a number of internationally acclaimed features including AUTUMN MOON (winner Golden Leopard Locarno, Best Picture European Art Theatres Association, Youth Special Jury Award Switzerland, 1992), TEMPTATION OF A MONK (competition Venice 1993, Grand Prix Creteil 1994). She moved to Australia in 1995 and continued to win many international awards including FLOATING LIFE (Silver Leopard Locarno, Best Film and Best Director Gijon, Grand Prix Creteil, Grand Prix Asturias, 1996), THE GODDESS OF 1967 (Best Actress Award Venice, Best Director Chicago, Best Director Teplice Artfilm, FIPRESCI Critics’ Award Best Film Tromso, 2000), LETTERS TO ALI (credited as 100 greatest films of Australian cinema by the critics), LIKE A DREAM (opening film Hong Kong Film Festival 2010), RED EARTH, (commissioned by HKFF, competition Venice 2010). DRIFTING PETALS, a bold feature exploring the possibility of alternate cinema shot in Australia, Hong Kong and Macau, won the Best Director Award in the Golden Horse International Film Festival 2021. Through the years her films have had innumerable nominations in the Golden Horse FF, HK Film Awards, AACTA Awards and been selected in many international film festivals including New York, Venice, Toronto, Sundance, Locarno, Rotterdam, Pusan, Jerusalem and London. Currently she is working on the sequel of DRIFTING PETALS.
