North American Premiere
Director Tsang Tsui Shan documents her hometown and one of its defining traditions in this moving film. Ho Chung Village lies in the hilly rural area of Hong Kong; once a decade, its citizens hold the Peace and Light Festival as a tribute to their village, its departed souls, and the gods that preside over them all. Tsung returns to Ho Chung in 2020 to document the preparations for the festival; soon the town is caught up in confusion and confinement due to COVID-19… Throughout the film, Tsung shows herself to be finely attuned to humanity: among the citizens featured are a Filipino nanny, set to depart Hong Kong as soon as she’s allowed; twin brothers who are trying to get a village newspaper project off the ground; and an elderly woman chafing against pandemic confinements. As a record of a place and its people, Winter Chants is fascinating, and as a portrait of civic communion, it’s quite poignant.
Supported by
Series Media Partner
Hong Kong
2023
Insights
In Cantonese and English with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Producer
Teresa Kwong, Ken Hui
Cinematography
Mak Chi Kwan Mike
Editor
Mary Stephen, eason Keung, Tsang Tsui Shan
Original Music
Masamichi Shigeno
Director
Tsang Tsui Shan
Tsang Tsui Shan was named the Best New Director at the 31st Hong Kong Film Award in 2012. In 2008, her first feature film Lovers On the Road (2008) won the Best Drama Film Award at the 8th South Taiwan Film Festival. Her second feature Big Blue Lake (2011) won the Jury Special Award of the 2013 Golden Koala Chinese Film Festival in Australia and the Asian New Talent Jury Prize of the 2012 Shanghai International Film Festival. In addition to film production, Tsang has also participated in advertisements and online TV productions. Her latest feature film The Lady Improper was released in April 2019.
Filmography: Lovers on the Road (2008); Big Blue Lake (2011); Flowing Stories (2014); Scent (2014); The Lady Improper (2019)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Sinners
2025's unexpected box office sleeper is that rare beast, a genre movie full of bold invention and surprise. We are in Mississippi in the early 1930s, and the opening of a new blues joint on the edge of town is the signal for all hell to break out.
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
A harried mother (Academy Award nominee Rose Byrne) clings to an unhelpful therapist (Conan O’Brien) as she struggles to cope with her daughter's mysterious illness in Mary Bronstein’s darkly comedic psychological drama.
Islands
In this sly, engrossing mystery, a dissolute English tennis coach in a Canary Islands holiday resort falls under suspicion when the husband of a beautiful guest disappears after a night of heavy drinking...
All That's Left of You
Jordan's submission for the Academy Awards, All That's Left of You makes the most of its epic format to chronicle seven decades of Palestinian history while tracking the psychological impact of cycles of exile and oppression on three generations.
L'Étranger
Recreating 1940s Algeria in vivid, high contrast black and white cinematography, L'Etranger is erotic, enigmatic and brutal in equal measures, a masterful screen version of Albert Camus's insoluble classic of existential alienation.