The original Chinese title of Blue Island specifies its blueness as melancholy reflection. Indeed, Chan Tze-woon’s beautiful film extends the run of excellent recent documentaries on the 2019 protest movement, such as Inside the Red Brick Wall (2020), beyond in-the-thick-of-it documentary.

Instead, Blue Island contemplates recent events as part of Hong Kong’s long struggle against external hegemony, including during British rule. The comparison of today’s protestors with the young leftist demonstrators of the late 1960s has been controversial. But Chan’s film has two strokes of brilliance. First, he casts today’s young protestors in re-enactments of the events of the 1960s and asks them what they feel. Second, he brings them together with the now middle-aged men and women they are impersonating. The results are thoughtful, tender, resolute, and heartbreaking.

Notes by & curated by Prof. Chris Berry, and will be introduced by emerging filmmaker Diana Cheung.

Screening as part of the East Asia Film Festival Ireland (EAFFI) 2023.