Freedom Swimmer
Synopsis
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.
Details
- Year
- 2021
- Type of project
- Shorts
- Running time
- 15 min
- Format
- Digital
- Director
-
Olivia Martin-McGuire
- Producer
- Brooke Silcox
- Co-Producer
- Ron Dyens, Olivia Martin-McGuire
- Editor
- Anonymous
- Screenwriter
- Olivia Martin-McGuire
- Director of Photography
- Anonymous
- Production Designer
- Anonymous
- Sound
- Anonymous
- Composer
- Pierre Oberkampf
- Principal cast
- British Canontese actors - anonymous
Genre
Categories
Production Status
Production Company
No-Thing Productions
17 Grenville RoadGooseberry Hill
Perth
Western Australia 6076
no-thing.co
Sales Company
Sacrebleu Productions
10 bis rue Bisson75020 Paris
France
Page updates
This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.
See also
You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.
Free Lyric
Director: Cherish 'Chez' Oteka
Year: 2026
Reliving one of the first viral social media moments in rap culture, when a 17 year old female rapper’s life was turned upside down by admitting to having an orgy, FREE LYRIC explores the experience of online call out culture, gender and consent. With the rise of social media as the backdrop, this film explores the journey of a young woman named Niki who was cancelled before being cancelled was a thing, and how she survived a sex scandal. Official Selection Raindance Film Festival 2026 - World premiere
Beyond the Divide
Director: Imoje Aikhoje
Year: 2025
A Black British activist and a former neo-Nazi sit face to face. In a tense encounter combining direct testimony with dramatic reconstruction, each man is forced to confront what brought him to this point: one radicalised by hate, one shaped by the movement that resists it. Chris Otokito and Nigel Bromage meet for the first time on camera. What unfolds is an unsparing examination of how far-right extremism takes root in Britain and whether dialogue across that divide is possible at all.
Galicia!
Director: Anna Maguire, Kyle Greenberg
Year: 2026
What if you went on a holiday and the apocalypse happened? GALICIA! is a found-footage, hybrid-documentary following a couple through home video footage as they visit their friends at a winery in rural Spain and inadvertently capture the end of days. We live in a time where the sense of our impending mutually assured destruction is more real than it’s ever been. GALICIA! Takes the form of a holiday video - a document of a couple before - and after the great cataclysm. The film starts as something that feels unedited - an accidental video diary of an ordinary couple that feels somewhat ghostly as much as it is also pedestrian. As the film evolves and degrades, we are led to question the fragility of humanity, as well as its power to endure.