Still Life (2024) is a self-reflexive documentary and intimate portrait of renowned self-taught painter Yeung Tong Lung (b. 1956, Fujian), best known for his large-scale figurative paintings that capture daily life in Hong Kong’s busy urban landscape. With a cinematic quality, Yeung’s paintings compress multiple perspectives and spaces into one canvas, coaching his audiences in different ways of seeing. The film follows Yeung over a three-year period, including his preparations for his 2021 solo exhibition Daily Practice at Hong Kong’s Blindspot Gallery. Filmed primarily in Yeung's tranquil, light-filled studio in Shek Tong Tsui, the quiet and contemplative film provides a window into the artist’s critical acuity and creative process as he stretches canvases, smokes, paints, listens to music, and engages in discussions with his sitters about the role of art, memory, and language in his practice. The film also reveals Yeung’s informal mentorship of young artists, reflecting on the collaborative nature of both painting and the filmmaking process.

The screening on 31 August will be followed by a post-screening talk by artist Yeung Tong Lung and filmmaker Dunet Chan Sheung Shing, moderated by M+ Associate Curator of Hong Kong Visual Culture, Vennes Cheng. This talk will be held in Cantonese.

Dunet Chan Sheung Shing is a Hong Kong-based filmmaker who graduated with an MA in Fine Arts from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Still Life is his first feature film. The documentary was awarded the Best Experimental Film prize at the Veneto International Film Festival and received the Best Documentary award at the Indian Independent Film Festival. The film was additionally selected for screening at the Swedish International Film Festival. Chan’s script and direction of the short film Angela (2015) won the Best Creativity Award at the Fresh Wave International Short Film Festival. From 2015 to 2018, he directed three episodes of the popular television series Below the Lion Rock (1972–ongoing) for Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK).