We Are Alive, directed by Yau Ching, documents media production workshops in juvenile reform and welfare institutes in Hong Kong, Macau, and Sapporo. The teenagers in the workshop play around with video cameras and sound recorders to express their thoughts, to appropriate mainstream popular culture, re-imagine their lives, respond creatively to their repressive environment, and write “video letters” to strangers and their future selves.

This documentary allows an insight into the lives of these incarcerated youths through the stories told from their unique perspective. The director hopes that this will help the viewer to reflect upon the “protection” imposed upon our teenagers, limits of our civility, and the openness of our society.

We Are Alive

2010

Directed, produced, and edited by Yau Ching

Camera and sound recording by workshop participants

101mins | Cantonese and Japanese with English subtitles

The documentary and its themes also tie in with the newly opened exhibition, *underground-children-festival, curated by Jens Cheung and Jill Angel Chun, co-presented with Goethe-Institut Hongkong. The exhibition questions the impositions of festival-making, especially that of Children’s Day, upon those around whom the celebration was initiated.

Follow this link to see an interview with the director, and RSVP: https://goo.gl/forms/CFB8XenaIPu39aMj1