Screening+Dialogue
Umbrella Diaries: The First Umbrella 傘上 : 遍地開花
followed by conversation with Director James Leong
Cantonese with English Subtitles (120 mins.)
Free and open to the public
A City in Protest event
Umbrella Diaries: The First Umbrella (2018) charts the origins of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement through the eyes of the activists and ordinary people who made it happen. From the June 4th Candlelit Vigil until September 28th, 2014, when tens of thousands of protestors occupied the streets outside Government Headquarters, this documentary puts us at the heart of the action, allowing viewers to experience the highs and lows of that remarkable summer, when Hong Kong witnessed a “blossoming of democracy.”
James Leong‘s documentaries have screened at festivals such as Hotdocs, IDFA and Yamagata. Passabe (2004), about truth and reconciliation in East Timor, received a grant from the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund. Homeless FC (2006) won the top prize at the Chinese Documentary Festival in Hong Kong. Wukan (2015) was awarded Best Feature at the Freedom Film Festival and the Chinese Documentary Festival and received a special mention at the Dubai International Film Festival. Umbrella Diaries: The First Umbrella has been nominated for Best Feature Documentary at the 55th Golden Horse Awards.
Together with Lynn Lee, James also directed the two-part documentary film Hong Kong’s Summer of Defiance (2019) for Al Jazeera English about the on-going anti-extradition bill protests in Hong Kong.
This screening is organized by the UBC Hong Kong Studies Initiative and co-presented by: Department of Asian Studies, Department of History, Department of Theatre and Film, Centre for Chinese Research, and Vancouver Hong Kong Forum Society.
