Four young women from Hong Kong are living in London, where they are digitizing archival materials on the history of Hong Kong, particularly those related to the transfer agreement between the United Kingdom and China – materials that can be hard to access back home. Focusing on the city’s colonial past, they discover their roots, ponder their identity, recall their experiences of the umbrella movement and share their thoughts on the future. In this well-researched, inspired essay, which approaches history as both personal and collective experience, filmmaker Dorothy Cheung puts Hong Kong’s current democratic and existential crisis in perspective, reminding us how important it is to understand the past to resist successfully in the present. (Apolline Caron-Ottavi)

Presented in collaboration with Radio-Canada

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