YP1967

We proudly pledge to donate 10% of all proceeds from this film to help and support young prisoners who were incarcerated due to involvement in social movements all over the world.

British Hong Kong, May 1967. As talk of anti-colonial sentiments filled the air, pro-Beijing leftist provocateurs began stirring a small labour dispute into a political struggle as the most violent ever in Hong Kong’s history moved into full swing.

Violent bombings, murders and mayhem exploded in this little British colony of the Far East. Eight months of rioting resulted in 51 people killed and 800 more injured. Thousands were convicted of offences and imprisoned. Among them, hundreds of minors were put behind bars for the crimes of opposing schools, Possessing seditious propaganda, participating in union activities and other crimes.

Five decades later, in spite of the city’s 20th handover anniverasary celebrations, six ex-young prisoners speak out for the first time about their unmentionable experience throughout the years.

They had been enduring complex entanglement with family, patriotic schools, workplace, unions and the country. This documentary film is about their love and hate towards their country, their honour and dishonour as a convicted criminal, their condonation and condemnation of the parties involved, and their truth-seeking and reconciliation with the past.

I do not think myself a good documentary director. I refuse a grand opening, compelling sound bites and a nuanced narrative structure. Instead, sometimes I hope an audience will jump up and shout out the absurdity of the scene because I do not bear to do it myself. My documentary embraces awkwardness and contradiction simply because it is how the reality really is.

Standing in front of a piece of history, I am not going to make pretentious twaddle, nor an inexcusable judgment on people’s past, as I never deserve the power to do it. I just want to document the fading trust and respect in the communities before everything is too late.

Many times I have been asked why I produce YP1967. Many times I said I have never believed such magnificent power of documentary films for a positive change. Yet seeing children of interviewees who gradually agree to attend a screening, a husband who hears his wife’s sufferings for the first time, and protagonists who cry a few days after reviewing their own stories again, I know the documentary film is doing its own job.

Can To is an award-winning documentary film director and producer with twenty years’ experience working in the television and media industry. Before founding CANTO WORKS, she was a senior TV producer at RTHK where she produced over 20 episodes of the acclaimed documentary series Hong Kong Connection.

Can’s production has won great international acclaims for the last two decades. In 1998, Where Women Ruled, a documentary film on Moso Tribes in Yunnan Province in China won the New York International Film Festival Finalist Award. A War Without Guns, a documentary film about AIDS orphans in China, won the Silver Award of United Nations Department of Public Information (UNDPI) in 2005. In 2010, Little Photographer an independent documentary film on children photographers in Sichuan province in China after 512 Earthquake, won the New York International TV and Film Festival GOLD Award.

Can holds a Master degree in Communication Studies from the Leeds University in the UK.