Extra Credits Event: Hong Kong / New York Student Film Festival & Exchange 2018

Hong Kong / New York Student Film Festival & Exchange was a truly successful event and appreciating their films greatly inspired me as an aspirational media content producer. The fact that students and faculties from Hong Kong Baptist University came all the way to New York in order to participate this event was incredible and it was “the” experience!

As announced, the films were gathered to be fit under the theme of home. Prior to the event, I expected that I would see something intimate and depicts close observation of culture. Even put into in the same theme, I was surprised to see a variety of unique representations of home. Among remarkable films, “The Dinner” especially stood out to me. Growing up, I couldn’t have dinner with my parents except Wednesdays because they both were at work. Although they devoted themselves into working so that I and my brother could live comfortably, it was still hard for little children to understand. I have dreamt of just having a dinner together everyday as other families do. The film successfully captures the essence of how much family means to each other and a strong bond between a mother and son. The film reminded me about the concept called “omoiyari” in Japanese which literally means “to care”. It is about thinking about somebody and going one step forward to do something for a person, which is usually nothing big or extravagant but a little thing that makes the person happier. The son going out to the market to get ingredients for cooking dinner and waiting for him mom to come home were examples of that. I think home does not only mean a physical house that we live in but also a spiritual space that a family has created and spent together. Therefore, every one of us has a sense of strong attachment and memories to the home.

Living in the urban city like New York, you feel more as an individual rather than belonging in a community because everyone lives their own lives. However, I think the event like this can raise an awareness as a member of a community living in a same place. Having this bridge of people over New York and Hong Kong is something we should keep embracing especially in this globalized and connected world. Even though we live in a different culture with different belief systems and customs, I felt the power of films as a media to communicate and deliver messages and their nature of universality.