The making and screening of independent films in the absence of radical Revolution: An interview with Augustine Mok Chiu-yu on social movements, technology, and censorship

AbstractThis is a wide-ranging interview with Augustine Mok Chiu-yu. It focuses on topics including film exhibition in Hong Kong of political films from across the globe and the making of independent and experimental cinema in Hong Kong. This contributes to an assessment of Hong Kong left-wing cinema in the 1970s that transcends and moves beyond the limiting boundaries of the US-Soviet Union Cold War discourse. Mok discusses his own role and history in producing and screening of progressive films in Hong Kong during this period. Augustine Mok Chiu-yu was a founding member of The 70’s Biweekly, an independent youth magazine first published on the first day of 1970. He was a social/political activist in The 70’s but he became more a cultural activist involved in writings and cultural work in subsequent years. He moved into theatre, performance art and community cultural development work and has performed in the US, UK, Poland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Kathmandu, Bangla Desh, Myanmar Republic, South Korea etc. He has organized many cross-cultural projects that toured in Asia and Europe. He won the first ever Award for Theatre of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council for the year 1998 and has been a great promoter in arts and disability, community arts and community cultural development in Hong Kong. He helped to found the Hong Kong International Deaf Film Festival and has been its hearing organizer for the 12 editions of the Festival. He was the producer of the 35 mm film entitled An Open Letter to Hong Kong’s Literary Youth and the documentary Black Bird - A Living Song. He has acted in Life and Times of Ng Chung Yin (Evans Chan), Ordinary Heroes (Ann Hui), Port Unknown (Mamunur Rashid), and N+N (Mo Lai). AcknowledgementMok Chiu-yu would like to thank Jimmy Choi Kam Chuen for providing more materials which were incorporated into some of his answers.Notes1 The Chinese language movement began in the 1970s, when English was the only official language used by the Hong Kong government. Because of that, notices, reports, gazettes and other government documents were not accessible to ordinary Chinese residents who could only read Chinese. The language policy aimed at separating the elite from the local Chinese, in order to stop local people from knowing about and engaging with political issues. Hence, the language movement registered the need to better understand Hong Kong society, and elevated the Chinese language as another official language.2 Also known as the Baodiao movement, Defend the Diaoyu Islands movement is about the territorial right over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands. It became a nationalistic movement among young students in Hong Kong, Taiwan and overseas Chinese communities in the United States.3 The 70s Biweekly was a radical magazine founded in 1970 by a group of young people whose political positions ranged from anarchist to internationalist to Trotskyist. They include Ng Chung Yin, Chan Qing Wai and Mok Chiu-yu.4 Aka. Letter to the Young Intellectuals of Hong Kong (Gei Xianggang de wenyi qingnian, 1978). This film has multiple English titles and several are used in this interview, including simply Intellectual Youth.5 This newspaper cutting from The China Mail, 20 February 1973 contains some information about this project, which was ultimately aborted, as well as covering a few of the issues Mok discusses in this interview.6 Editor note: In fact this film was not banned in Hong Kong but was heavily censored for the reason Mok outlines here.7 This is the cover of the 2nd issue of Youth Vanguard, which Mok called the junior version of The 70s Biweekly, and the image that you see in Mok’s film mentioned above is this cover. Yank Wong Yan Kwai designed this cover, who later became a famous painter, writer, photographer and art director for films including Long Arm of the Law (1984), An Autumn’s Tale (1987), Cageman (1992) and Summer Snow (1995).8 Kenny K. K. Ng points out that films that related to the Sino-British relationship like Zheng Junli’s The Opium War (Lin Zexu , a.k.a. Yapian zhanzheng) (1959) were taboo, which is probably why this film could not be screened. See Kenny (2008, 28).9 These are a few of the ticket stubs of the screenings that took place at the Hong Kong City Hall theatre in the Cactus Club phase of their operations. Film titles, dates of screenings and ticket prices can be seen on these tickets. Thanks to Mok Chiu-yu for this image.10 The Hong Kong Arts Centre is a non-profit arts institution established in 1977.11 Lu Xun, a leading figure of the May Fourth Movement in the early 1920s and the League of Left-Wing Writers in the early 1930s, criticized the prevailing ethos in the literary and artistic circles led by Xu Zhimo. The criticism happened in 1924, and was about Xu’s mystic tones and abstract sentimentalism in poetry. The attack was also aimed at the Crescent Moon Society, which was named after Tagore’s The Crescent Moon.12 According to Che Guevara, revolution is not about suppressing dissent, but creating the conditions for the emergence in rural areas of highly trained guerrilla fighters. They are trained and organized into a cohesive group called the foco as the precondition needed to arouse the populace into a mass revolution. The success of the “foco” depends on other factors including self-learning, protection of peasants, support of the agrarian reform and self-autonomy of the military and political order of the guerrilla foco. Their main enemy is not dissent but the legitimacy of the government and the regular army.Additional informationNotes on contributorsTom CunliffeTom Cunliffe is a lecturer in East Asian Film and Media studies at University College London. His essays have appeared in journals including Film History, Framework, JCMS, and Screen. He is currently working on a book about the filmmaker Lung Kong.Raymond TsangRaymond Tsang is a lecturer at the University of Southern California. He earned his Ph.D. degree in Cinema Studies from New York University. His research interests include a wide range of topics including wuxia films, Third Cinema, and political films during the Cold War.