The implementation of the National Security Law in Hong Kong in July 2020 certainly had an impact on censorship, and this became more obvious in 2021. The Film Censorship Ordinance, which was instituted in 1988, mandates that films intended for public exhibition must be approved by the Film Censorship Authority. Generally, films will be classified as regards to a three-tier classification system.
The government revised the “Film Censorship Guidelines for Censors” in June 2021. Along with the previous guidelines, whether the exhibition of a film would be contrary to the interests of national security is now a key factor in whether a film is approved for exhibition. In September 2021, the government submitted the revised Film Censorship Ordinance to the Legislative Council, and it was subsequently passed in October. The revised censorship ordinance further extends national security interests by giving more power to the Chief Secretary, who now also has the authority to revoke a previously issued Censorship Certificate, if the exhibition of the film is no longer deemed to be in the interests of national security.
Though the Ordinance and Guidelines were revised in 2021, censorship had been tightening since late 2020, when Ying E Chi, an independent film distribution company based in Hong Kong, arranged a screening of the local documentary Inside the Red Brick Wall, directed by “Hong Kong Documentary Filmmakers.” The documentary was about the police siege of Hong Kong Polytechnic University in November 2019, where supporters of the Anti-Extradition Law Movement where holed-up. The protestors were besieged for nearly two weeks by police. While the film was first classified as Category IIB (Not Suitable for Young Persons and Children), the it was re-classified as Category III (for aged 18 or above only) in September 2020, with the request to add a notice stating some of the acts shown in the documentary were against the law of Hong Kong.
Right after the revision of the “Film Censorship Guidelines for Censors,” Mok Kwan-ling’s short film Far from Home, a government-funded Fresh Wave Short Film Competition film, about a girl and her boyfriend who was arrested due to the 2019 Hong Kong protests, was denied an issue from the censorship centre before the screening of the competition in late June. The screening of the film was then cancelled. According to director Mok, the film censorship authority required all 14 scenes related to the protests to be deleted in order to obtain a pass, and this amounted to over two-thirds of the film.
After that, any scenes related to the 2019 Hong Kong protests arising from the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement have been judged contrary to the interest of national security, and will not pass censorship, despite being shown in other film festivals around the world. The best example is Kiwi Chow’s Revolution of Our Times, a documentary based on the entire 2019 Hong Kong protests. This had its world premiere at the Cannes International Film Festival, but it was not able to pass the censors in Hong Kong. Chow, one of the directors of the short film omnibus Ten Years (FEFF 18) said that all the film rights were sold to the distributor before the world premiere, and he longer possessed any footage of the film.
In October 2021, another 2019 Hong Kong protest-related film, May You Stay Forever Young, directed by two young Hong Kong directors, Rex Ren and Lam Sum, appeared on the nomination list of the Golden Horse Awards. The trailer for the film clearly indicated that it would not be possible to release the film in Hong Kong.
The revision to the Ordinance also caused the production of films made in relation to the 2019 Hong Kong protests to stop. Blue Island, directed by new director Chan Tsz-woon, was a Kickstarter-funded film about protests in Hong Kong from the 1960s up until 2019. It had its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in January for industry and media only. The probability for the release of Blue Island is very low.
Films that passed film censorship and obtained a censorship certificate before the revised Ordinance was in operation still face a risk that their censorship certificates can be revoked by the government at any time. It would then be difficult to release these films in Hong Kong. Cinema owners are so scared by the Ordinance that they refuse to show these films. No one would show Inside the Red Brick Wall and Save PolyU, another documentary relating to the police siege of Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
While the mainland Chinese government has said that the National Security Law will not affect the freedom of Hong Kong, and the revision of the Film Censorship Ordinance is solely in the interest of national security, it seems there is a tendency for self-censorship inside the industry. There could be more and more incidents that could relate to the interest of national security in the future, so it’s possible that more films made in Hong Kong will be banned by the Hong Kong government.
Ryan Law