These are our fifteen recommended films from the Hong Kong International Film Festival, which will take place from March 28 – April 8, 2024 in Hong Kong.

A Song Sung Blue by Geng Zihan – China | 2024 – 90 minutes

When her mother is sent to Africa for work, young Liu Xian is left in the care of her estranged father. Her blue summer suddenly brightens up when she becomes obsessed with the older Mingmei. Confident, sexy and bold, she is everything Liu Xian wishes she could be. Geng Zihan’s impressive debut sets itself apart from its contemporaries with confident direction and memorably drawn characters. Propelled by an alluring undercurrent of sexuality bubbling just beneath the surface, the film seduces audiences into its colourful world with a dream-like atmosphere. (HKIFF 2024)

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A Traveler’s Needs by Hong Sang-soo – Korea | 2024 – 90 minutes

Isabelle Huppert reunites with Hong Sang-soo for a languid, breezy afternoon ramble through the streets of Seoul, spending her day on a series of encounters. As Iris, she gives walk-and-talk French lessons, while enjoying the milky rice wine makgeolli and getting her students to talk about their feelings. In their third film together, the director and star sketch an elusive outline of an enigmatic character, leaving spaces for viewers to fill with their imagination. Huppert brings a cosy familiarity to the cryptic universe of the prolific Korean auteur. Grand Jury Prize, Berlinale. (HKIFF 2024)

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Black Box Diaries by Ito Shiori – Japan, UK, USA | 2024 – 103 minutes

In March 2015, Ito Shiori, an ambitious young reporter, was raped by one of the country’s most powerful and influential journalists. As the rest of the world was embracing the #MeToo movement and overhauling their attitudes towards victims of sexual violence, Japan’s outdated laws, and interference from her attacker’s powerful cronies, rallied to silence her. In making this deeply personal film, Ito relies upon her skills and responsibilities as a journalist to expose Japan’s archaic prejudices in the hope of finally finding justice and closure by reliving her own life-changing trauma. World Cinema Documentary Competition, Sundance Film Festival. (HKIFF 2024)

Borrowed Time by Choy Ji – China | 2023 – 93 minutes

The offspring of a cross-border extramarital affair, Ting has been estranged from her father for many years. As her wedding approaches, Ting decides to travel to Hong Kong from Guangzhou to seek closure. There, a surprise reunion with a long-lost friend allows her to finally understand her father. Produced by Stanley Kwan, Guangzhou native Choy Ji’s fiction feature debut is an ethereal journey about scars, the nature of memories, as well as his love for Hong Kong as an outsider who lives so close, yet so far from the city. (HKIFF 2024)

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Brief History of a Family by Lin Jianjie – China | 2024 – 100 minutes

An incident on the playground brings together two high school boys. As the unruly Wei introduces the enigmatic Shuo to his upscale home, his parents soon become infatuated with the underprivileged kid. Shuo’s integration into Wei’s family life gradually uncovers suppressed emotions and unspoken secrets, complicating their lives in unexpected ways. Evoking conventions of suspense thrillers, Lin’s first feature places an intricate family portrait under the microscope, deciphering the metamorphosis of human relationships in post one-child-policy China. (HKIFF 2024)

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Essential Truths of the Lake by Lav Diaz – The Philippines, France, Portugal, Singapore | 2023 – 214 minutes

On the shores of a mysterious lake soon to be covered in ash, Lt. Hermes Papauran re-opens a 15-year-old cold case: the disappearance of the artist and activist Esmeralda Stuart, also known as the ‘Philippine Eagle.’ Set prior to the events of When the Waves Are Gone and structured as a deconstructed nod to hazy film noir classics such as The Maltese Falcon, Lav Diaz’s latest foray into the detective genre finds the Filipino master wrestling once again with his country’s corrupt institutions, their propensity for selective amnesia, and the madness of President Duterte’s rule. (HKIFF 2024)

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Exhuma by Jang Jae-hyun – Korea | 2024 – 134 minutes

When a pair of young shamans are hired to bless the newborn of a wealthy Korean family living in the US, they sense a spectre lingering over them and order an exhumation of their ancestor’s grave back home. To do this requires the services of a veteran geomancer, but the ceremony backfires, unleashing a malevolent force upon the family. Continuing his fascination with religion and ritual, Jang whips up a ghoulishly entertaining supernatural thriller that recalls Na Hong-jin’s acclaimed The Wailing, as it strikes deep into the heart of Korea’s traumatic collective past. (HKIFF 2024)

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Lumberjack the Monster by Miike Takashi – Japan | 2023 – 118 minutes

After surviving a brutal attack by a masked, axe-wielding assailant, young lawyer Ninomiya learns that he has a neuro chip embedded in the frontal lobe of his brain. It soon becomes apparent that his would-be killer is wanted for a string of grisly murders, with all his victims sharing the same mysterious secret. Another late-night delight from the unfathomably prolific horrormeister Miike, this twisted blend of police procedural and psychological thriller attempts to literally prise open the head of a serial killer to determine just what makes them tick. (HKIFF 2024)

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Nocturnes by Anirban Dutta, Anupama Srinivasan – India, USA | 2024 – 82 minutes

A single neon light, attached to a piece of tarp, attracts hundreds of insects. Two researchers are looking for the hawk moth. In the pitch black of night, day after day, they make their way through the Eastern Himalayas, anticipating, observing, annotating. Faithful to their title, co-directors Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan craft a nocturnal stroll into the world of moths, doing away with the trappings of scientific documentary to instead emphasise the sounds and textures of the forest and thus create a fully immersive experience, encouraging us to slow down and look. (HKIFF 2024)

Oasis of Now by Chia Chee Sum – Malaysia, Singapore, France | 2023 – 90 minutes

At a run-down Malaysian residential complex, undocumented Vietnamese worker Hanh spends her days handling household jobs and, during her breaks, visiting a stairwell to play with a young girl. As the melting pot of local life comes into view, so do the pair’s relationship and Hanh’s personal challenges. Director Chia Chee Sum returns to his old housing estate and crafts a model of minimalism with his feature debut – a measured, gently observational picture of closeness and distance among family and neighbours. (HKIFF 2024)

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Obedience by Wong Siu-pong – Hong Kong | 2024 – 70 minutes

Nestled in the centre of Hong Kong, the neighbourhood of Hung Hom is a study in contradictions. While the dead are transported to the nearby funeral homes, the living crowd its bustling streets. The affluent live in luxury residences towering over dilapidated buildings marked for demolition, while the poor sift through construction waste and trash for a meagre living wage. Capturing the ebb and flow of this urban district over a five-year period, Wong Siu-pong’s latest observational documentary provokes thoughtful discussion at a time when waste disposal has become a hot-button issue. Official Selection, International Film Festival Rotterdam. (HKIFF 2024)

Shadow of Fire by Tsukamoto Shinya – Japan | 2023 – 96 minutes

In the immediate fallout of World War II, Japan has become a desolate wasteland, populated by disenchanted husks of humanity, who cling to civility by a tattered thread. Continuing his series of stripped down, low budget period pieces, Tsukamoto follows the traumatic fortunes of a shellshocked young orphan boy, as he drifts from one tragic guardian to the next. Eight[1]year-old Tsukao is utterly mesmerising in this central role, our eyes transfixed to his seemingly angelic appearance as the horrors of war do their worst to encircle and erode his fragile innocence. (HKIFF 2024)

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Snow Leopard by Pema Tseden – China | 2023 – 109 minutes

In the high altitudes of the Tibetan Plateau, a snow leopard is trapped in a sheep pen after killing nine rams. A heated debate ensues between the enraged herder and his brother, the ‘Snow Leopard Monk’, who appears to share a mystical telepathy with the animal, about whether to kill it or set it free. Boldly juxtaposing realism and abstraction, Pema Tseden’s posthumous swan song examines the spirituality that exists in all beings in this simple yet profound parable, while pondering the empathy between man, nature, and establishments. Tokyo Grand Prix, Tokyo International Film Festival. (HKIFF 2024)

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Some Rain Must Fall by Qiu Yang – China, USA, Singapore, France | 2024 – 98 minutes

Forty-something Ms. Cai isn’t happy. When she inadvertently injures an elderly woman while throwing a ball during one of her daughter’s basketball matches, the carefully constructed facade of her life explodes in a million shards of loneliness and resentment, made worse as the incident reverberates in her family life. A study in stasis, Qiu Yang’s debut takes us into the psyche of a profoundly melancholy character, whose inner life is emphasised by lush, ghostly framing that explicit the many walls we construct for ourselves, whether in love or domesticity, or simply in life. (HKIFF 2024)

The Cats of Gokogu Shrine by Soda Kazuhiro – Japan, USA | 2024 – 120 minutes

Documentarian Soda Kazuhiro refocuses on Ushimado – the waterfront setting of his Oyster Factory (40th) and Inland Sea (42nd) – as a resident, having moved there with his wife in 2021. In the small town, a clowder of cats lounges around the hilltop shrine, attracting carers and admirers, pestering fishermen, and pooping in gardens. As locals try to contain the feline population, while pondering their appeal to tabby-loving tourists, Soda quietly observes the delicate balance between people and their environment, and the changing shape of his community. Berlinale Forum. (HKIFF 2024)

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For more information, please visit: https://www.hkiff.org.hk/