On November 8th (last Saturday), the Hong Kong community center, Hong Kong House, and Amnesty International co-hosted a film screening event in Castro Valley, Northern California to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the release of the Hong Kong film “Ten Years” and to call for the release of detained democracy activists by the Hong Kong government. Nearly a hundred people from various parts of California attended the event.
“Ten Years” is a Hong Kong-produced film released in 2015. The film consists of five interwoven fictional stories, each led by different directors, creating a collection of short film segments. Through their own encounters, the five groups of characters in the film predicted significant changes that would occur in Hong Kong society in the upcoming decade.
Former Hong Kong Legislative Council member Shum Chung Hei was one of the invited guests at the event.
In an interview with Epoch Times, he mentioned that when he watched the movie years ago, he found it “exaggerated, far beyond his imagination of reality. Hong Kong should not deteriorate (as depicted in the film).” However, upon watching it again after a decade, he acknowledged that Hong Kong is much worse off compared to what was portrayed in the film.
He stated that Hong Kong is currently experiencing a second wave of emigration, with many people being forced to leave the city and seek refuge elsewhere. He estimated that so far, over 300,000 people have left Hong Kong, surpassing the number of those who left between 1990 and 1996, before the city returned to Chinese rule.
After the film screening, he highlighted that many democratic parties and groups in Hong Kong had been ordered to disband earlier this year by the authorities. Numerous democratic factions have been forced to cease activities, signaling the end of street politics and party politics in Hong Kong for the future.
He encouraged overseas Hong Kongers to continue embracing the spirit of Hong Kong and preserving their own culture, stressing that persistence is victory.
Another guest at the event was Li Yun Hao, a Senior Research Fellow at the Asian Law Center at Georgetown University in the United States. During the post-film discussion, he expressed nostalgia for the freedom space that Hong Kongers had ten years ago.
He pointed out that the Chinese Communist Party is currently cracking down on press freedom in Hong Kong while trying to sever the city’s connections with overseas in terms of information and funding to prevent civil society and human rights organizations in Hong Kong from contacting those abroad. The CCP aims to isolate Hong Kong from the international community and transform it into just another inland city of China.
He urged individuals overseas who care about Hong Kong to strengthen their connections with the city and called on governments and media worldwide to pay attention to democracy and freedom issues in Hong Kong.
Shao Lan, the spokesperson for the Hong Kong Overseas Branch of Amnesty International, served as the host for the event. During her speech, she highlighted that there are currently over 1,900 political prisoners in Hong Kong facing difficult circumstances and in need of care and support from the international community.
Shao Lan told Epoch Times that when she first watched “Ten Years” a decade ago as a high school student under 18, she has now grown up to be in exile in the United States. She shared that while the film evoked heavy emotions in her, what motivates her daily to strive forward is not hatred but hope.
Participant Xi Zheng Ying spoke about the means by which the CCP suppresses local culture in Hong Kong, likening it to the methods used by the Japanese military during World War II. Just as the Japanese military prevented the people of Hong Kong from using their local language, the CCP today, through various coercive measures, pressures Hong Kongers, especially the younger generation, not to speak Cantonese.
At the conclusion of the event, participants from Hong Kong posed for a group photo, each holding a leaflet with the slogan “Release Leung Chu Yan, Release Tsoi Hang Tong.”
Leung Chu Yan is a former member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council and Vice Chairman of the Labour Party. Tsoi Hang Tong is a barrister in Hong Kong and former Vice Chairman of the Hong Kong Alliance.
Currently, Leung Chu Yan and Tsoi Hang Tong are both political prisoners, having been detained by the Hong Kong authorities for over 1,500 days.