BOAT PEOPLE

Ann Hui

Hong Kong

- 1982

A Japanese photojournalist named Akutagawa is sent to Vietnam at the end of the war to document life under Communist rule. After being shown the official yet false version of reality, he has the opportunity to experience the real day-to-day life of an oppressive regime, marked by police corruption and brutality, while following ordinary people such as a poverty-stricken family, or a woman of Chinese origin who introduces him to a petty thief who is desperate to flee the country.

Ann Hui

She was born in 1947 in Anshan, Manchuria. After graduating in Comparative Literature from Hong Kong University, she studied for two years at the London Film School. On returning to Hong Kong she worked briefly as an assistant to King Hu and then began directing dramas, documentaries and docudramas for television. She made her first feature, ‘The Secret’, in 1979 and was immediately recognized as a key figure in Hong Kong’s nascent New Wave. Since then she has directed more than twenty feature films, becoming one of the most renowned Asian directors. She has been credited with other awards such as the Berlinale Camera for the whole of her film work in 1997, the Casa Asia Film Week Award in 2011, the Golden Lion for her entire career at the Venice Festival in 2020 and the Lifetime Achievement award from the New York Asian Film Festival in 2021.