🎬 Films & Documentaries|紀錄片與電影

Some of the fullest records of Hong Kong's decade of dissent are not documents but films — shot on the front lines of 2019, dramatised from its memories, or imagined a decade ahead. Many of them can no longer be shown in the city they portray. A 2021 amendment to the Film Censorship Ordinance empowered censors to ban any film "contrary to the interests of national security," and to revoke the approval of films already passed — the moving-image counterpart to the criminalisation of books. The result is a body of work preserved and screened everywhere except home. This page gathers it, with each film's trailer and, where possible, where it can still be seen.

A note on the clips below: these are the films' official trailers (and, for Do Not Split, the full film) as published by their makers and distributors. Where a film was released free by its creators, we point to that; otherwise we link where it can be bought or streamed.

Ten Years (十年, 2015) — the warning

Where this story arguably begins. Ten Years is a speculative anthology of five short films — by directors Ng Ka-leung, Jevons Au, Chow Kwun-wai, Kwok Zune and Wong Fei-pang — imagining Hong Kong in 2025: Mandarin displacing Cantonese, youth "guards" policing bookshops, a self-immolation outside the British consulate. Made for about HK$500,000, it became a surprise hit — outdrawing Star Wars at one Yau Ma Tei cinema — and won Best Film at the 35th Hong Kong Film Awards (2016). Beijing's response was a preview of what came later: mainland outlets were ordered to condemn or ignore it, and state television did not broadcast the awards ceremony for the first time in decades. Its cinema run was quietly curtailed at home. Ten years on, much of what it imagined has arrived. (IMDb)

The 2019 uprising on film

Cockroach (2020)

Dissident artist Ai Weiwei's 93-minute documentary — its title the slur ("曱甴", gaat zaat, cockroach) that police and pro-Beijing media hurled at protesters, reclaimed — assembles front-line footage of the 2019 movement from its peaceful marches to the siege of Polytechnic University. Directed by Ai from exile in Europe using material gathered on the ground, it was released internationally on video-on-demand (Vimeo, MUBI, Alamo) in December 2020 and, like the others here, has had no Hong Kong release. (IMDb · Vimeo On Demand)

Do Not Split (2020)

Norwegian director Anders Hammer's 35-minute front-line short for Field of Vision — teargas, water cannon, the siege months — earned a 2021 Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Short. The nomination alone was enough for Beijing to order mainland broadcasters not to carry the Oscars live. Field of Vision released the film free online, so it remains one of the most-watched records of 2019. (IMDb)

Inside the Red Brick Wall (理大圍城, 2020)

An 88-minute account of the November 2019 siege of Hong Kong Polytechnic University, shot from inside the campus by an anonymous collective calling itself Hong Kong Documentary Filmmakers (with a companion film, Taking Back the Legislature, on the 1 July 2019 storming of the legislature). Distributed by Ying e Chi, its Hong Kong screenings were cancelled and disrupted in 2020, and after the 2021 censorship amendment it became effectively unshowable in the city; it circulates through international festivals and distributors instead. It won Best Editing at IDFA. (IMDb: Inside the Red Brick Wall · Taking Back the Legislature)

Revolution of Our Times (時代革命, 2021)

Director Kiwi Chow's 152-minute chronicle of the movement — the marquee protest documentary. It was slipped into the 2021 Cannes line-up as a last-minute, unannounced world premiere to avoid a diplomatic reaction, and won Best Documentary at Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards. To protect himself, Chow sold the rights abroad and destroyed his own footage; the film has never been shown in Hong Kong and its title — the 2019 protest slogan — is itself now treated as seditious. (IMDb)

Blue Island (憂鬱之島, 2022)

Chan Tze-woon's 97-minute hybrid documentary has protesters of 2019 re-enact the flights and imprisonments of an earlier generation — 1967 leftists, Cultural Revolution swimmers, the 1989 exiles — braiding decades of Hong Kong upheaval together. It won Best Feature Documentary at Hot Docs 2022 and screens internationally rather than at home. (IMDb)

Faceless (2021)

Journalist Jennifer Ngo's debut follows four anonymous participants — "the Student," "the Artist," "the Believer," "the Daughter" — through the anti-extradition movement, the masks a reminder of the cost of being seen. Distributed by Dogwoof. (IMDb)

May You Stay Forever Young (少年, 2021)

Not a documentary but a dramatisation — directors Rex Ren and Lam Sum restage a real effort by protesters, volunteers and a social worker to find and stop a teenager from taking her own life during the 2019 unrest. Denied release in Hong Kong, it premiered at Golden Horse, where it won the NETPAC award. (IMDb)

Portraits

Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower (2017, dir. Joe Piscatella) — the Netflix documentary on Joshua Wong's student years, still streamable in Hong Kong but, as of September 2026, under Security Bureau "follow-up action" for national-security compliance — the censorship drive reaching an international platform (Netflix · IMDb).
Lost in the Fumes (地厚天高, 2017, dir. Nora Lam) — a portrait of localist leader Edward Leung, whose slogan gave Revolution of Our Times its name. (IMDb)
The Hongkonger: Jimmy Lai's Extraordinary Struggle for Freedom (2022, Acton Institute) — on the jailed Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai. (IMDb)

Filmography

Each title links to its IMDb page.

Film	Year	Director(s)	Subject	Hong Kong status
Ten Years 十年	2015	Ng Ka-leung & others	Dystopian HK, 2025	Curtailed at home
Raise the Umbrellas	2016	Evans Chan	The 2014 Umbrella Movement	Independent/festival
Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower	2017	Joe Piscatella	Joshua Wong / Scholarism	On Netflix; under review (2026)
Lost in the Fumes 地厚天高	2017	Nora Lam	Edward Leung	Independent/festival
Taking Back the Legislature 佔領立法會	2020	HK Documentary Filmmakers	1 July 2019 LegCo storming	Effectively unshowable in HK
Inside the Red Brick Wall 理大圍城	2020	HK Documentary Filmmakers	PolyU siege, Nov 2019	Effectively unshowable in HK
Do Not Split	2020	Anders Hammer	2019 protests (Oscar-nom short)	Free online; not in HK cinemas
Cockroach	2020	Ai Weiwei	The 2019 protests	International VOD; not in HK
Revolution of Our Times 時代革命	2021	Kiwi Chow	The 2019–20 movement	Banned; never shown in HK
May You Stay Forever Young 少年	2021	Rex Ren, Lam Sum	2019 protests (drama)	Denied HK release
Faceless	2021	Jennifer Ngo	Four anonymous protesters	International (Dogwoof)
Blue Island 憂鬱之島	2022	Chan Tze-woon	Generations of HK dissent	International only
The Hongkonger	2022	Acton Institute	Jimmy Lai	International only

Preserve the record

If you have festival programmes, posters, subtitle files, press kits or recordings of screenings of these or other Hong Kong protest films — especially ones now hard to see — or know of a film missing here, please help add it: see Participation. Films can be banned from a territory but, once shared, are very hard to erase.

Sources

Backlinks