Hong Kong protest film sells out within minutes in Vancouver

All 2,400 tickets for a controversial protest film screening in Vancouver were quickly sold out in an apparent show of solidarity with Hong Kong residents whose freedom is being chipped away under China's rule.       

The 152-minute documentary Revolution of Our Times, a chronicle of Hong Kong protests from June 2019 to June 2020, is also being shown in Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto and Victoria across February and March.

Event organizer Sam Lung says he didn't expect the Vancouver screenings to be so popular. Tickets for the 10 screenings scheduled for February were sold out in about three minutes, while tickets for four sessions that were added in March to meet the high demand sold out in an hour.

From what he's seen at the eight screenings so far, Lung estimates that 95 per cent of the ticket buyers are originally from Hong Kong.

Black banners have been installed at screening theatres where Post-It notes of words of encouragement can be affixed — an idea, he says, that was inspired by the Lennon Wall in Prague.

Lung says the banners will be sent to the director, Kiwi Chow in Hong Kong.

"Even [though] we're in Canada, we're still concerned [about] Hong Kong and want to send a message to the Hong Kong writer and director."

Sensitive film title

The documentary title stems from "liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times," a slogan that was chanted by hundreds of thousands taking to the streets in Hong Kong in the summer of 2019 to protest the draft extradition law.

The law was written to empower the Hong Kong government to transfer people to mainland Chinese courts for criminal trials. Many Hong Kongers feared it would compromise civil liberty in the semi-autonomous region, which traditionally has an English-style independent judiciary that is drastically different from the state-controlled court system in China.

WATCH | Trailer of Revolution of Our Times

Protests in Hong Kong virtually ended with the Chinese government's introduction of the national security law in June 2020. 

Last July, a Hong Kong court sentenced a man to a nine-year jail term under the law for what it said was a secessionist act, flying a banner that bears the slogan "liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times." 

Due to the sensitive nature of the phrase, Revolution of Our Times is unlikely to be screened in Hong Kong and China. It was shown last year at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as in Taiwan, Japan and the United States.

University of British Columbia graduate student Jason Chan — not his real name but to whom CBC has granted confidentiality over fears he may be subject to the national security law if found watching the documentary — participated in the first two months of the 2019 protests while staying with his family in Hong Kong during a summer break from school.

Even though he watched the film in San Francisco last December, he says it's worth the money and time to watch it again in Vancouver this week.

"I want to watch it to see if there are any extra messages I feel like I can get out [of] the movie," he said. "I can see that there are new video [footages] that I haven't seen before in the news or social media."

Canadians' solidarity with Hong Kong

Hong Kong-born Vancouver East MP Jenny Kwan, who was invited to watch the screening on Sunday, says she was devastated at the scenes of brutality involving Hong Kong police and gangsters trying to suppress the protest.

"There were students as young as 11 years old coming out to protest on their own, trying to fight for their future, and you have seniors, elderly coming forward to try and protect them," she said.

Former Steveston-Richmond East MP Kenny Chiu, who was also born in Hong Kong and invited to the screening, remembers, soon after taking the oath of office in Parliament in November 2019, travelling to Hong Kong to monitor the district council elections, where pro-democracy candidates won in a landslide.

Chiu says it would have been perfect if the documentary could have also highlighted the social disruption Hong Kong residents had to face in order to show the world that democracy would win.

"I'm proud to be a Hong Konger in Canada," he said. "Democracy is such a sweet privilege that we enjoy, and it's strengthened my resolve in ensuring that we Canadians will continue to enjoy that."