Documentary "Rather Be Ashes Than Dust"
“A haunting elegy for Hong Kong” – Busan International Film Festival 2024
Journalists are trained to be objective. How about when working under an authoritarian regime while fearing for your life? Rather be Ashes than Dust is a first-person documentary chronicling a journalist-filmmaker's struggle with his conscience while witnessing intense police brutality against protesters during the 2019 protests in Hong Kong.
In 2020, a year into the protest movement, China imposed the National Security Law on Hong Kong, taking away its judicial independence and many freedoms, including the freedom of expression. Many journalists had to decide: go to prison, shut up, or leave?
This film reflects the personal struggle of a video-journalist while filming the protest movement, bringing out issues that have not been discussed yet very relevant to reporters on the ground. When it is obvious that the government is not telling the truth and state-sanctioned violence against its citizens has gone out of hand, what is the role for journalists? When injustice is witnessed, should you continue to film as an observer or make a stand? By remaining silent, have you become complicit? If the situation becomes life-threatening, should you continue to film?
Using the Hong Kong protest movement in 2019 as a backdrop, this film follows a video journalist's four-year journey to find answers to these questions.
Having premiered in film festivals in South Korea, New Zealand and Sweden, the film now comes to Toronto for its Canadian premiere at the end of September for two screenings at OCAD University and University of Toronto Scarborough, with director Alan Lau in attendance.
The documentary has English narration and subtitles. Tickets and details available at Eventbrite:
2pm Sat Sep 28 at OCAD University https://ashes-toronto-downtown.eventbrite.ca/
2pm Sun Sep 29 at UT Scarborough https://ashes-toronto-uptown.eventbrite.ca/
Or visit TADC web site for more details