Special Hong Kong Stories

Mad World (2016)

Tickets zo 25 okt
zo 25 okt
16:30 EN subs
di 24 nov
18:50 EN subs
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One of the more recent films in our programme, Mad World offers an intimate look at mental health and family relationships in contemporary Hong Kong. The film follows Tung, a former financial analyst with bipolar disorder, who returns home after being discharged from a psychiatric hospital and moves in with his estranged father as they struggle to rebuild their relationship. Set largely inside a tiny flat, the film makes Hong Kong’s housing crisis part of the story. Mad World also explores the stigma surrounding mental illness, social isolation and the pressures of city life. Wong Chun’s feature debut premiered at TIFF in 2016 and won him Best New Director at both the Golden Horse Awards and the Hong Kong Film Awards.
 
On 25.10 the film will be introduced by Yasmine Chan, a Hong Kong-born film critic and programmer based in the Netherlands. She explores cinema through social, cultural, and political perspectives, and regularly writes about Asian cinema for international publications. In her introduction she will explore how Hong Kong cinema has portrayed housing, family relationships and mental health through everyday life, and consider how the film reflects the pressures of contemporary urban living in the city.

Credits

Regie
Wong Chun
Cast
Shawn Yue, Eric Tsang
Genre
drama
Speelduur
101 minutes
Land
Hong Kong
Taal
Cantonese
Ondertiteling
English

Storyline

An absentee father and his bipolar son are forced to live together as they struggle with a recent family tragedy. The tension and anxiety boil as they live and try to cope in a tiny apartment. As time passes, they realize their shared pain is not their only source of grief, as they find the outside world is a cruel and unjust place.

This programme is made possible by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Brussels.

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