OCAD University Digital Futures and Richard Charles Lee Hong Kong Library @ U of T co-hosts a screening and Q&A with the producers and director of the documentary, Alan Lau of Rather Be Ashes than Dust.
The film is a first-person documentary chronicling a journalist-filmmaker's struggle with his conscience while witnessing intense police brutality against protesters during the 2019 movement 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 the many freedoms promised by the Joint Declaration, including the freedom of expression. Many journalists had to decide: do I shut up, go to prison, or leave? Using the Hong Kong protest movement in 2019 as a backdrop, this film will follow a video journalist's four-years' journey to find the answers to these questions.