'Film Course: Women Make Film I' consists of two sixty-minute screenings: each followed by a discussion with a filmmaker and a critic, to be conducted in Cantonese.

The first of seven classes asks how some of the world’s greatest women directors establish a tone, convey believability, and introduce their characters. This session features screenings of five chapters from Mark Cousin’s documentary Women Make Film.

‘Opening’ looks at how to open a film with examples from 1943 to 2016, from China to France, Finland to Argentina. Next, ‘Tone’ explores how directors set the personality—whether delightful, angry, poetic, edgy, violent, profound, or caring–of their works.

Chapter three, ‘Believability’, is about simple human stories, the truth about life, genuine emotions, and responses to the world. In ‘Introducing Characters’, Cousins explores how directors use various ways to introduce characters by shaping the audience’s subconscious judgment through dialogue or action. Finally, ‘Meet Cute’ looks at unique examples—from intimate glimpses to worlds colliding spectacularly between two characters—of the classic Hollywood trope.

The screening originally scheduled on 2 July has been rescheduled to 14 August 2022, 14:30. Ticket holders can attend the new screening with their original tickets, or follow the refund procedures that have been sent via email.

In this film class, acclaimed director of An Autumn’s Tale (1987) Mabel Cheung and veteran critic and curator Li Cheuk-to will converse on Mark Cousins’ analysis of different approaches to opening a film, setting the tone, introducing a character, and making a scene believable. The speakers will draw examples from Alex Law’s Echoes of the Rainbow (2010) and Cheung’s An Autumn’s Tale (1987), The Soong Sisters (1997), and City of Glass (1998). Li will introduce audiences to the fourteen-hour journey of Women Make Film and clarify common misunderstandings about the project.