In a new collaboration, Decolonial Futures (Universiteit van Amsterdam) and Het Documentaire Paviljoen explore the multifaceted relationship between cinema and (de)coloniality. Under the title Cinema Under Siege, this first series explores the risks filmmakers face under political regimes that monitor, censor, and suppress dissent – often at great personal cost, from legal persecution to exile. How do filmmakers navigate these threats while continuing to tell urgent stories?

The previous events in the Cinema under Siege series explored the boundary between censorship and self-censorship among filmmakers in Turkey, and the destruction and preservation of audio-visual heritage in Palestine. This third event expands the conversation on contemporary cinema under constraint by focusing on Hong Kong, where a new generation of filmmakers is reimagining their relationship to the city and reshaping their craft in the wake of recent political upheavals. How do activism, social unrest, and the risk of legal repercussions shape the contemporary cinema of Hong Kong?

The program features recent short films from Hong Kong, introduced by Nadica Denić, and followed by a conversation with the directors. The films and their creators have chosen to remain unnamed.

Nadica Denić is a film scholar and curator focused on the entanglement of film and contemporary political developments in Europe and beyond. She works as a Lecturer in Media and Culture at the University of Amsterdam (UvA), where she has also completed her PhD in 2024 on the ethics of contemporary first-person films about migration.