Ten Years, controversial Best Picture winner at Hong Kong Film Awards, to screen in Singapore

Cast and crew from the controversial Hong Kong film Ten Years, pose for a photo on the red carpet at the Hong Kong Film Awards. PHOTO: AFP

SINGAPORE - Fresh from its controversial Best Picture win at the Hong Kong Film Awards last week, Ten Years will be screened here at the upcoming Singapore Chinese Film Festival to be held later this month (April).

Two of the five directors of the omnibus, Jevons Au and Kiwi Chow, as well as the producer of the work Andrew Choi, will also be in town on May 1 as part of the festival to give talks about independent film-making in Hong Kong.

Ten Years is an anthology of five vignettes - each helmed by a different director - that depicts an imagined Hong Kong in the year 2025, when human rights apparently are on the decline as Beijing tightens its control on the city.

The low-budget HK$600,000 (S$104,000) project spoke to Hong Kong audiences, playing to packed screenings when it was released last December and made an unexpected HK$6 million at the box office after eight weeks.

But China's state media has condemned the film, and its nomination in the Hong Kong Film Awards led to several China TV channels boycotting the broadcast of the live event.

Other than Au and Chow, the other three directors involved in the anthology are Ng Ka Leung, Wong Fei Pang and Zune Kwok.

Ten Years is among 62 titles showing at the Singapore Chinese Film Festival, which runs from April 29 to May 8. For details, go to the event's Facebook page at www.facebook.com/SGChineseFilmFestival.

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