Documentary and democracy: An interview with Evans Chan

Abstract

Gina Marchetti’s interview with NewYork-based Hong Kong independent filmmaker Evans Chan took place after Chan had said goodbye to his former home and to nearly three decades of filmmaking in the city, following the introduction of Hong Kong’s National Security Law in 2020. Her interview focuses on Chan’s non-fiction filmmaking, particularly his recent films dealing with Hong Kong’s two protest movements of 2014 and 2019, namely Raise the Umbrellas 撐傘 () and We Have Boots 我們有雨靴 (). While the latter part of the interview concerns Chan’s thoughts on the relationship between documentaries and democracy, it also explores the signature aesthetics of his films and an underlying ‘story of Hong Kong’, which the interviewer sees as a consistent thread running through his fiction and non-fiction filmography. A wide range of cinematic, literary, sociopolitical and philosophical influences in his work emerge in the course of this in-depth interview with the filmmaker.