Other Filmmakers and Notable Women in Hong Kong Film
Beyond the individual filmmakers that are listed on this site, there are many other notable women in the Hong Kong filmmaking industry who deserve a special mention. Listed below are some of these women, with a short description of their work to date, and their relevance to Hong Kong. Some links to external sources are also included.
Do, Vicky
Vicky Do is a Vietnamese graduate student who studied fine arts photography in the United States before moving to Hong Kong. She received critical attention for her piece Stranger From Paradise (2014), which records a Vietnamese girl’s response to the Occupy Movement in Hong Kong. Her blog can be found at https://hongtouping.wordpress.com.
Fong, Rosa
Rosa Fong is currently Senior Lecturer in Film and TV at Edge Hill University, U.K. Her work in film is primarily in writing and directing in the U.K., although she has directed commercials in Hong Kong. She describes her work as “practice-based research” and her prolific body of work reflects this.
Related Links:
Edge Hill University: Staff biography of Rosa Fong
Fu, Wing-yan Lilian
Lilian Fu graduated from the School of Creative Media at City University of Hong Kong in 2008. Her specialty is in animation, and samples of her work can be found on her personal website.
Related Links:
Fung, May Mei-wah (馮美華)
May Fung began her film career in the 1970s as an independent Super-8 filmmaker, progressing on to home video later on. She was one of the first graduates from the Professional Diploma Programme in Filmmaking from the Department in Extramural Studies (founded in 1965 and renamed the School for Continuing and Professional Studies in 2006), at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 1986, she co-founded Videotage and began working with the theatre collective Zuni Icosahedron, which in turn inspired her to explore alternative art forms such as video installations. In 1999, she received Hong Kong Arts Development Council’s Artistic Development Award.
Related Links:
Hong Kong Art Archive – Filmography and Short Biography
HK Magazine – First Person: May Fung Mei-wah
SCMP – May Fung
Videotage – non-profit organization
Jen, Helen
Helen Jen received a B.F.A. in Film and Television from New York University in 2001. She has worked extensively in visual effects and animation in Hollywood, including such films as Avatar, The Muppets, and Fast and Furious 7.
Related Links:
IMDB page of Helen Jen
LinkedIn of Helen Jen
Kong, King-chu (江瓊珠)
King-chu Kong is a journalist and film director, who is one of the founders of an independent publishing house in Hong Kong. Her documentary “Reading Xi Xi” is a tribute to the Hong Kong writer and premiered in March 2014.
Related Links:
Coming Soon-社運紀錄片拍攝及放映計劃 (Chinese only)
《革命‧女》紀錄片 (Chinese only)
Lee, Seyoung
Seyoung Lee is a new documentary filmmaker whose first project is a documentary about foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong and gendered migration. Her work was part of the Brace Fellow Presentation Series at Andover Phillips Academy, Massachusetts in 2010.
Related Links:
Brace Fellow Presentation Series, Andover Phillips Academy
Limpin, Vivian N.
Vivian Limpin is a highly prolific multimedia artist involved in creative writing, poetry, photography, painting, theater lighting, and filmmaking. She graduated from the University of the Philippines in 1995 with a B.A. in Creative Writing in Filipino. She is currently president of Kasibulan, an organization comprised of Filipino women artists whose mission is to support the work of female artists and encourage further participation of women in the arts sector. In 2006, she released a documentary in Filipino titled Kunyang, about Filipina domestic workers in Hong Kong. She acted as director, writer and cinematographer for the documentary.
Related Links:
Panitikan: Philippine Literature Portal – biography
Ng, Carrie Kar-lai (吳家麗)
Carrie Ng is perhaps best known for her extensive acting career in the Hong Kong film industry, which began when she joined TVB studio in 1982. She was often cast in both mainstream films and in adult films rated Category III as the femme fatale, due to what was perceived as her sultry looks. She won Best Actress in the Golden Horse Awards in 1993 for her role as Judy Yu in Remains of a Woman (1993), and the HKFA Best Supporting Actress in 2000 for her part in The Kid (1999). In 2014, she co-directed and co-produced her first film, Angel Whispers, with Shirley Yung.
Related Links:
South China Morning Post – Actress Carrie Ng to Co-direct First Film
Sagresti, Elena
Elena Sagresti hails from Italy and began her career in filmmaking after being given a scholarship to the Hong Kong International Academy of Film and Television (IATF) in 2013. Prior to her work in film, Elena worked as a fashion designer, interior and product designer, before also working as a comedienne and actress, gracing the stage in Italy, China, Hong Kong, the USA and Israel. She is co-founder of Comedy HK. Since 2004, she has been based in China and uses her cross-cultural experiences to inspire her filmmaking. The Ventilator is a short film based on true event, about a young woman who is romantically entangled with a married man and who struggles to break free from the toxic relationship. The Ventilator was her thesis film from IATF. She is currently working on a new project about a middle-aged nurse living a double life.
Related Links:
Elena Sagresti Youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmqNPLlPocvAgcx_ji-mCAQ/videos
Tan, Jia (譚佳)
Jia TAN is Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies in the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. She received her doctoral degree in critical studies of cinema and television from the University of Southern California. Her research interests include film and media studies, television studies, documentary, gender and sexuality, digital activism, human rights, and fantasy media.
She was responsible for direction and cinematography for a short documentary entitled Days Without Summer in 2003 for the Phoenix Chinese Channel. She was also producer, director, cinematographer and editor for the short, Erica (2009), which was selected for the Davis Feminist Film Festival 2010, and was a Best Gay/Lesbian film nominee for the Great Lakes International Film Festival 2010. She has acted in curatorial positions for USC’s Cinematheque 108, School of Cinematic Arts in 2009, and as consultant for a documentary series produced by China Education Television in 2012. She is also the author of various academic publications about photography, documentaries and film in China and transnationally. She served as a consultant for The VaChina Monologues (2014), a documentary about the localization of Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues in China.
Related Links:
CUHK – Faculty biography
Tsang, Anastasia (曾憲寧)
Anastasia Tsang is a graduate of Sorbonne University’s film department. In her debut feature A Light Never Goes Out (2021 / 燈火闌珊) actress/director Sylvia Chang plays a widow determined to fulfil her late husband’s wish of recreating a demolished neon sign, once an icon that illuminated Hong Kong. Simon Yam and rising actress Cecilia Choi co-star.
Related Links:
A Light Never Goes Out: Facebook page
Shannon Walsh
Shannon Walsh is Shannon Walsh is a filmmaker, writer and Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre and Film at the University of British Columbia. She was previously an Assistant Professor at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. She has a PhD in Anthropology and Education, and her research deals with South Africa, Cities, Race and Sexuality and visual and participatory methodologies. H2Oil (2009), her first feature-length documentary, documented the effects of Canada’s tar sands on the environment and human populations. Her other feature-length documentaries, namely Jeppe On A Friday (2012) and St-Henri, the 26th of August (2011) have played in over forty film festivals worldwide. Jeppe On A Friday played at the 2015 Venice Biennale as part of the Johannesburg Pavilion. Her feature-length documentaries have played worldwide in theatres, TV and film festivals. She has also made a number of short films which have played in many film festivals around the world. Her eight minute documentary, Under The Umbrella (2014) was made as a commission for Al Jazeera +, and follows three young women, as they experience the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. Under The Umbrella was shown in the 2015 Hong Kong Independent Film Festival in a section dedicated to shorts about the Umbrella Movement.
Related links:
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3230639/
University of British Columbia: https://theatrefilm.ubc.ca/profile/shannon-walsh/
Wendler, Sybil
Sybil Wendler is a director and producer who was born in Hong Kong but grew up in the United States. Her 2010 documentary, Once Upon a Rooftop, documents the hidden lives of Hong Kong’s rooftop population who live in illegal structures built on top of housing blocks. The documentary won the first ever Loni Ding Award in Social Issue Documentary from the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) in 2011.
Related Links:
Wong, Grace
Grace Wong is currently a freelance producer for Radio Television Hong Kong, and producer for Torne Films Ltd. Her most recent project with Torne Films was co-producing the feature-length documentary Lessons in Dissent along with Matthew Torne and Li Ping Kong. Lessons in Dissent had its world premiere at the 2014 Hong Kong International Film Festival, and documents the story of Joshua Wong and Ma Jai, two secondary school students participating in political activism for greater democracy in Hong Kong. Grace graduated from Hong Kong Shue Yan University in 2006 with a BA in Journalism and Communication, and has an MSc in Gender, Media and Culture, Sociology from the London School of Economics and Politics.
Related Links:
LinkedIn of Grace Wong: https://hk.linkedin.com/in/grace-wong-361b1446
Lessons in Dissent Official website: http://www.lessonsindissentmovie.com
Yeung, Esther (楊慧蘭)
Esther Yeung is a film executive in international film sales business. From 2008 to 2012, she worked for Fortissimo Films, a Dutch/US world sales company, as Director of Asian Acquistions and Marketing, helping Asian auteurs to launch their films to international film festivals and the world market. From 2012 to 2021, she served as general manager, head of sales and distribution, at Bill Kong’s Hong Kong-based producer-distributor Edko Films. During her tenure, she headed acquisition and oversaw the local release of films such as Oscar winners Parasite and Moonlight, and Asian hits such as Train To Busan, Bad Genius, Secret Superstar and Shoplifters. She was appointed chief operating officer of Hong Kong filmmaker Peter Ho-sun Chan’s We Pictures in December 2021.
Related Links:
Screen Daily: https://www.screendaily.com/news/peter-ho-sun-chans-we-pictures-appoints-esther-yeung-as-coo/5165639.article
Yung, Sau-lan Shirley (翁秀蘭)
Shirley Yung has worked in film in several capacities since the early 1990s, as production manager and producer, amongst other posts. Her most recent film, Angel Whispers (2014) marks her first foray into directing – she shares co-director and co-producer credits with Carrie Ng on this film. The film is set in Hong Kong’s Sham Shui Po red light district, and is a suspense-drama about a group of prostitutes and their landlady who face eviction by the Triads and a mystery murderer. The film won a HKD150,000 prize at the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum in March 2014, and marks the first directorial collaboration between the friends.
Related Links:
South China Morning Post – Actress Carrie Ng to co-direct first film
HK Top Ten (Film Blog) – Carrie Ng’s Directing Debut Receives Cash Prize
Hong Kong Women Filmmakers 
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