FREEDOM SWIMMER documents a mass migration story from the 20th century, which is relatively untold in the Western world— and offers context for a city in turmoil, today.
A granddaughter asks her grandfather to recount his journey from China, swimming to Hong Kong in the 1970’s.
One of two million mainland residents who swam across the southern sea border. Many others died trying or were captured and sent to labour camps. He was one of the lucky ones.
From the 1950’s to 1980’s Hong Kong was a symbol of freedom to many Chinese, glimpsed across the water. The grandfather, like many others, went on to have a successful life in Hong Kong and was part of the working-class movement that helped transform the city into a financial success story.
FREEDOM SWIMMER explores the effect of past cultural trauma, exploring a new perspective on the current situation. It reflects the depth of a symbol that is ‘freedom’ - that Hong Kong both represents and holds onto so tightly.
On a wider-scale, this is a universal story of the dispossessed— what it takes to flee your country, what it means to fight for freedom, what it is like to leave everything in hope of liberty.
Zara, a schoolgirl in Karachi, shares a sensual dance video with her virtual boyfriend, who then blackmails her.
Official Selection Hamburg International Short Film Festival 2022
Official Selection International Film Festival Rotterdam 2026
A shapeshifting noirish romance about 20-something Mina. By day, she holds down a professional job. By night, Mina practices martial arts. A clash with a stranger triggers a supernatural occurrence that will draw her deep into the very ancestral traditions that she has been trying to escape.
A parallel plot following teenagers Ayesha and Chloe who are neighbours, yet inhabit very different worlds, and think that the grass is greener on the other side.
This urgent film beds in with Hong Kong’s pro-democracy demonstrations, offering a frontline portrait of four young protesters through a year of struggle. We see their hopes for a freer life and feel their fears as the authorities crack down. Pulse-racing scenes bring the viewer to street level, where peaceful protest is met with fury and tear gas. Clear-eyed about the complications and contradictions that come with a movement that changed Hong Kong forever, it is a brave document of troubled times.
Official Selection CPH:DOX Festival 2021 - F:act Award - World premiere
Two twenty-something former best friends Margo and Celeste meet again at a hen party back in Cornwall, but under the waves of disappointment and failure, will the reunion cause them to sink or swim?
Two ex-lovers bump into each other at a train station.
Official Selection Annecy Film Festival 2021 - World premiere
Official Selection SXSW Film Festival 2022
My grandmother was a T'ung-yang-hsi. It is a tradition of pre-arranged marriage, selling a young girl to another family to be raised as a future daughter-in-law.
The audiences may glimpse the past, imagine women's situation in our times, and look forward to striving for real gender equality in the future.
Official Selection Hot Docs Festival 2021 - World premiere
A sobering and powerful imagining of a dystopian near-future.
"In collaboration with actor-musician-activist Riz Ahmed, this work transcends the genre confines of a music video to create an incisive conceptual accompaniment to the title track from Ahmed’s personal album of the same name. Set in a speculative future of a risen right-wing and rampant post-Brexit racism, Riz unpacks his feelings towards his country in a powerful, gut-punch monologue of rap and spoken word." (London Short Film Festival)
Set and filmed at the Royal Pavilion Brighton, this artist film is a postcolonial response to chinoiserie. Historical individuals from Taiwan, China and Britain question, fail to understand, argue and disagree with each other over the representation of Chineseness in chinoiserie in-situ.
Sarah and Dev meet in this quirky comedy clash of black and indian cultures cultures leading up to a mixed race marriage. Will their marriage stand the test of time?
