How Hong Kong’s First Feature Film Initiative subsidies helped a new generation of directors – and how every movie from scheme’s first 10 years fared

Hong Kong’s First Feature Film Initiative was set up in 2013 to identify new directing talent and help finance their first films

We look at every film the FFFI has funded, and evaluate the performance of each one at the box office and on award nominations and awards won

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Sammi Cheng in a still from “Lost Love”, directed by directed by Ka Sing-fung. It is one of the movies financed by Hong Kong’s First Feature Film Initiative. Photo: Flowing Water Production

Published: 11:15am, 15 Nov 2023

Anyone interested in the new Hong Kong cinema must have heard of the government’s much heralded First Feature Film Initiative (FFFI), launched in March 2013 to identify new talent and help finance their first feature films as directors.

As this week marks the cinematic release of Time Still Turns the Pages and the festival premiere of Fly Me to the Moon, respectively the 14th and 15th completed titles in the FFFI pipeline, we look back at the scheme’s first decade of operation and evaluate how well its funded projects have performed.

1. Weeds on Fire (2016)

Produced by: Chan Hing-kai, O Sing-pui

Box office: HK$4.6 million (US$589,000)

The first FFFI project to open in cinemas set the tone with its sincere effort to reconnect with local history (one of the city’s earliest youth baseball teams) and reflect the social sentiment of the time (allusions to 2014’s “umbrella movement” protests that would probably be censored today).

Director Steve Chan Chi-fat’s coming-of-age sports drama received eight nominations at the 2017 Hong Kong Film Awards (HKFA) and won two prizes. Read our full review

How Hong Kong’s First Feature Film Initiative subsidies helped a new generation of directors – and how every movie from scheme’s first 10 years fared

Hong Kong’s First Feature Film Initiative was set up in 2013 to identify new directing talent and help finance their first films We look at every film the FFFI has funded, and evaluate the performance of each one at the box office and on award nominations and awards won

1. Weeds on Fire (2016)

Hong Kong’s First Feature Film Initiative was set up in 2013 to identify new directing talent and help finance their first films

We look at every film the FFFI has funded, and evaluate the performance of each one at the box office and on award nominations and awards won