Today, I went to the Hong Kong Independent Short Film and Video Awards at the Hong Kong Arts Centre to check out a screening of the finalists in the "Youth" category. I love work produced by youth and I was curious to see what would be on the agenda for youth in Hong Kong. Alas, most of the films were not subtitled as advertised (especially so for my non-Canto-speaking friends that I dragged along), but it was interesting nonetheless. A couple of the films were really artfully done and I was most taken with Chow King-sum's "Anyone here?" Tracing the day of an average disillusioned, disenfranchised teenager, we witness the Hong Kong that passes him by -- the early morning work of bakers and butchers, the mindless rush of suits and briefcases, the countless people going places and doing things, while he smokes a cigarette, invisible to their preoccupied eyes. I feel his aimless floating through the crowds, nowhere to go really but nowhere to stay. He smokes another cigarette. He buys an ice cream cone. Even playing video games loses its allure after a while. He sits on an isolated bench, downing a dinner of a beer and a bun under the gaze of a streetlamp. There he sits and thinks. Smokes another cigarette. Until it's time finally to go home again. Text at the end reveals that he's failing school but nobody notices. He tried hard to look for a job, but nobody would hire him. And now...
Do we wonder why he and so many others ask if anyone is here?
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