How does one get a tarot card reading in the digital age? Mountain River Jump! is here to help. Think of a question, whip out your phone, and take a photo of the screen with fast-rotating images. Your photo is your fortune, which you can decipher with the help of the wall text.

Cards of Chinese Animal Idioms: Legends in Human World (2017) is an interactive installation that reinterprets traditional Chinese divination with digital technology. The looping video features 49 unique cards created by the artist duo Mountain River Jump!   This humorous and interactive artwork combines Asian spiritualism with a commentary on digital acceleration and our constant search for the meaning of life.

Mountain River Jump! is a Guangzhou-based duo founded in 2016 by identical twins Huang He and Huang Shan. Their multimedia practice explores the intersections of mysticism, ancient beliefs, psychology, and popular culture within contemporary Chinese society. 

Wong Ping’s cheeky characters set the scene for the Lounge.

His work pairs an apparent innocence with a sinister undertone in a vividly coloured and dreamlike world that reflects modern society while alluding to social and political issues.

Wong Ping (b. 1984, Hong Kong) is an animator and graphic designer who has been releasing video works since 2010. Wong won the top prize at the 2nd Shenzhen Independent Animation Biennial in 2014. In 2020, he was nominated for an Ammodo Tiger Short Competition Award at International Film Festival Rotterdam and the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival.

Join us for an engaging sharing session featuring eminent video and media art pioneer Ellen Pau and Sam Chan, the co-founder of Restituo, a Hong Kong-based tech startup specialising in digital image restoration. The session delves into their recent collaboration in restoring Pau's early works, including one of her most well-renowned works Recycling Cinema (1998), which was exhibited at the Hong Kong Pavilion of the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001. The discussion revolves around the exploratory experience of utilising spatio-temporal deep learning algorithms and attention-based transformers to restore visual artefacts produced commonly in the videotape format. The talk also highlights the complexities of time-based media art preservation by examining the unique perspective offered by the collaboration between media artists and conservators. This conversation will be conducted in English and moderated by John Chow, Project Coordinator, Moving Image at M+.

Date and time:
1 June 2024, 18:00–19:00

Join renowned filmmaker and scholar Nick Deocampo for the international release of his new book Alternative Cinema: The Unchronicled History of Alternative Cinema in the Philippines (2022). Forty years in the making, the book is ‘the first comprehensive account of the network of film forms – from documentaries to experimental, animation to short features, student films to home videos – that forms an alternate cinematic reality to the conventional Filipino movies.’ Deocampo will be in dialogue with Alan Yeung, Associate Curator, Ink Art at M+.

Date and time:

2 June 2024, 16:00–17:00

Neco Lo will speak with M+ Curator-at-Large Li Cheuk-to about his film Private Antonio (1986/2019) and his friendship with the late Hong Kong artist and sculptor Antonio Mak. The footage was shot in Mak’s studio eight years before his untimely death in 1994 but digitised and edited into a 13-minute short only in 2019 when Standart: The Collected Drawings of Antonio Mak Hin-Yeung was published.

Date and time:

31 May 2024, 16:00–16:30

A continuation of the screening programme Hands-on Animation, artist Lei Lei will demonstrate his animation process in Hand Colored No.2 (2015) in an open-studio manner. Visitors are invited to join the process by colouring black and white photographs, which will be turned into short animations at the end of the workshop. This free workshop is on a drop-in basis.

Date and time:

2 June 2024, 13:00–16:00

Join this screen printing workshop to create a festival souvenir! Visitors can choose their favourite Festival graphic design or image by Wing Shya and print their souvenir with the help of artist Kinchoi Lam.

Kinchoi Lam is a Hong Kong artist and picture book maker. He obtained a master’s degree in children’s book illustration at Anglia Ruskin University in England. His work brings everyone with him to travel around the world and explore different cultures and stories in life. With his first picture book, Little Big Tram, he won the First Prize in the Creative Writing in Chinese Award in 2016 and the Hong Kong Publishing Biennial Award in 2019. Lam’s recent picture book publications include Journey to Mars (2021), The Unexpected Journey of Little Star (2022), and Nomads: Life on the Move (2022). His other illustration works have won various local and oversea awards and have been included in exhibitions.

Date and time:
30 May 2024 16:00–19:00

31 May to 2 June 2024 14:00–17:00

Join M+ curators for a guided tour of Primitive, an immersive solo exhibition of Thai artist and filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul. A visionary of our contemporary condition, Weerasethakul is known for his experiments with non-narrative structures and states of possibility.

Date and time:

31 May 2024, 18:30–19:00

➔ Register here

2 June 2024, 15:00–15:30

➔ Register here

Follow M+ curators on a tour of Shanshui: Echoes and Signals. This exhibition presents a fresh perspective on shanshui, ‘mountain and water’, showcasing its essence through a thought-provoking blend of sculpture, moving image, sound, design, architecture, and ink painting.

Date and time:

1 June 2024, 15:00–15:30

➔ Register here

Zhang Peili’s video art installation Broadcast at the Same Time (1999.12.31 night) (2000) will be on display in the Main Hall, accompanied by curator-led tours during the festival.

Date and time:

31 May 2024, 18:00–18:30

➔ Register here

1 June 2024, 17:30–18:00

➔ Register here

Last but not least, don’t forget to check out the M+ Mediatheque. Designed as a gallery, library, and lounge, the Mediatheque is a sanctuary for moving image. Explore this unique collection with the M+ Moving Image team, as they guide you through this space for research, education, and entertainment, where you can view an ever-expanding collection of artists’ videos on-demand.

Date and time:

1 June 2024, 15:30–16:00

➔ Register here

2 June 2024, 15:30–16:00

➔ Register here

Enjoy an eclectic mix of vinyl-only DJ sets to kickstart the Asian Avant-Garde Film Festival. Local veteran crate diggers Woonjii and JayMe will transport you to another world through diverse music genres from their personal collection of over 4,000 vinyl records. Explore musical possibilities, transcending formats and experiencing varied artistic expressions.

Woonjii possesses a unique collection of abstract sounds, unconventional rhythms, and melodies from around the world, with a focus on Asia. Woonjii's debut at 宀 club showcased her genre-defying mixing skills, leading her to establish the experimental collective,‘yisekai. With unconventional sounds, yikesai create exciting new experiences, disrupting emotions and space.

JayMe grew up in the 1970s witnessing the disco boom firsthand. He started DJing in 2013 alongside his medical career, earning him the title ‘the Disco Doctor’. He founded the club Acadana, which provides the community with an escape to total freedom and self-expression on the dance floor. JayMe also founded Reach, a music collective that pays homage to clubbing culture in NYC in the late 1970s with respect for their positive, uplifting messages, and strong belief of their key fundamentals of inclusion, peace and harmony.