Hong Kong Early Queer Video Art + Artist Talk

This screening features pioneering Hong Kong video artists Ellen Pau and Anson Mak. In the 1980s and 90s, they used video to explore queer worlds, lesbian and bisexual desire, and identities rendered invisible when homosexuality was still taboo.

Working across music video, performance, and documentary, they recontextualised pop culture through a queer lens—reclaiming Cantonese opera's gender play and Canton pop's homoerotic undercurrents—while magnifying the nuances of historical moments, including the AIDS epidemic and the advocacy for the Equal Opportunities Bill. Together, these works recover a forgotten lineage of LGBTQ+ history in Hong Kong. They remind us that archives are not merely records of the past, but blueprints for queer futurity.

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Love in the Time of Cholera dir. Ellen Pau | Hong Kong | 1989 | 5min

Song of the Goddess dir. Ellen Pau | Hong Kong | 1992 | 7min 1992 Hi-8, single-channel, colour and sound 7min

52Hz dir. Ellen Pau | Hong Kong | 2022 | 17min

Two Or Three Things I Know About Them dir. Anson Mak | Hong Kong | 1991 | 28min

Same Yet Different dir. Anson Mak | Hong Kong | 1996 | 20min