A film documenting last year’s bloody siege of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has bagged an award at a prestigious international film festival.
Last Friday, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) named “Inside the Red Brick Wall” as the winner in the “best editing” category for feature-length documentaries.
The IDFA is one of the world’s largest documentary film festivals. Held every year in the Netherlands, the event screens more than 300 films and attracts over 3,000 industry professionals annually.
In the Competition for Feature-Length Documentary, the IDFA Award for Best Editing (€ 2,500) goes to an anonymous collective of Hong Kong Documentary Filmmakers for INSIDE THE RED BRICK WALL pic.twitter.com/pe5LuPOfN8
— IDFA (@idfa) November 26, 2020
In a report, the judges praised the film’s “tight editing” and camera that is “always at the right distance.”
“Through the quality of its writing and editing, this film becomes a universal story about the bravery of the small in the face of the strength of the powerful,” the report reads.
The film’s producers won €2,500, or around HK$23,200, in prize money.
In a video posted on the Facebook page of Ying E Chi Cinema, an organization of local independent filmmakers, a producer thanked the IDFA for presenting “Inside the Red Brick Wall” with the award.
“What happened at the Polytechnic University is still a very fresh wound for Hong Kong… Please continue to pay attention to Hong Kong and to those facing suppression around the world,” he said, adding that the title “means a lot” for the city.
“Inside the Red Brick Wall” was made by a collective of anonymous directors who captured the university siege. More than 1,300 people were arrested on the campus.
Two weeks before the announcement of the award, PolyU banned its student union from screening “Inside the Red Brick Wall” as well as another documentary about the siege. The university’s student office said the film was “at risk of violating the laws of Hong Kong.”
In September, the Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration (OFNAA) graded the documentary as a Category III film, meaning it is only suitable for those 18 years of age or above. The government body also required the film to open with a warning that its content “may be unverified or misleading.”
Earlier, the DVD that producers sent to the OFNAA for review was returned in pieces. The authority wrote in an email that it broke in the DVD player and had already compensated producers with another DVD.
