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Hong Kong International Film Festival 2024: 15 must-see films and programmes, including All Shall Be Well and Exhuma
- Exhuma, starring Choi Min-sik, will delight the late-night horror crowds; Takeshi Kitano’s brilliant period epic Kubi depicts a man’s unbridled quest for power
- The legal battle triggered by the death of one half of a same-sex couple is the subject of All Shall Be Well; documentary Black Box Diaries examines misogyny
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Hong Kong’s foremost celebration of world cinema, the Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF), is back with the first entirely in-person event since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Around 200 films will be shown in more than 300 screenings for the festival’s 48th edition and, as always, it boasts a wide variety of new features and restored classics.
These are our 15 highlights of the 2024 festival.
1. All Shall Be Well (opening film)
After receiving its world premiere in Berlin and taking home the Teddy Award for best LGBTQ-themed feature at that festival, Ray Yeung’s hotly anticipated follow-up to the award-winning Suk Suk opens the Hong Kong festival.
Patra Au Ga-man and Maggie Li Lin-lin play an ageing same-sex couple. When one of them dies, the other is thrown into a nightmarish legal battle with the partner’s family. Yeung’s bittersweet film takes Hong Kong to task for the lack of legal protections for its LGBT+ citizens.
2. Gift
Japanese filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s award-winning Evil Does Not Exist began life as an installation to accompany the work of composer Eiko Ishibashi before it was reconfigured as a feature film, winning the grand jury prize at the Venice Film Festival.
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