Back to the Blog

 

After a long hiatus, I have returned to writing. Originally this blog stopped because of my work running the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society (which included the Hong Kong Asia Film Finance Forum for co-production) and the Asian Film Awards Academy - two very full time jobs. Although I was watching quite a lot of films, the day to day executive work including hectic festival schedules and travel, prevented me from thinking and reporting about the state of cinema and films.

The need to stay-in-place because of the Covid-19 pandemic has given me pause for thought. Leaving my full-time job in the festival and academy also gave me more time to devote to an activity that I had neglected.

I began my film career as a student who watched films and wrote about them. It was a practice that taught me about films and helped me navigate my way through the industry of film production and film festivals. Over 10 to 15 years of writing notes about films, publishing articles about movies and broadcasting on radio, I practiced and developed my ability to analyze films and write about them in an orderly way. This was not always successful of course but as a believer in "practice makes perfect" I think it's a way of trying to improve.

Writing about films that I see has become more pressing because watching films on digital platforms and TV sets and monitors has a physically different effect that watching celluloid films projected on a screen. Brain retention is better with celluloid projection. It's physiognomy but also the environment in which we watch digital films can be distracting. 

I don't think it's necessarily age creep but after watching films on digital platforms, I find it difficult to remember the kind of detail I remembered when watching celluloid projections. So the practice of writing about films serves two purposes - the act of film analysis, and the facility of memory.