Philly Screening: May You Stay Forever Young

108 East Butler Avenue,Ambler PA 19002

23 July, 2022

Description

After a young protester announces she will commit suicide on social media, a group of fellow protestors must race against time to find her. In June, 2019, a series of massive demonstrations against the Hong Kong government’s attempt to revise and pass the Extradition Law led to a chain of suicides by young protesters to validate their opposition. The story takes place on 28th July, a week after the white mob attack in Yuen Long. YY, a 17-year-old girl, announced her attempt to end her life on Instagram. After that, she couldn’t be contacted or located. Nam, the 20-year-old “comrade” she met after a protest-related arrest, and amongst others, frantically searched for her around Kwai Tsing district where she lived. Her photo and other information were posted on Telegram and LIHKG Forum, resulting in hundreds of volunteers joining the search. It’s a run against time. emotionally exhausting hunt, she was finally located in Mongkok, the busiest area populated by young people. Meanwhile, on the island side, protesters are confronting the fully armed riot police. Yet, it becomes a dilemma for those who are still searching for YY. This youth drama sets against the backdrop of Hong Kong’s 2019 Anti-ELAB movement (protests against government-proposed legislation, the Extradition Law Amendment Bill, which would have made it easier to send Hong Kong residents across the mainland Chinese border for trial and possible imprisonment in the PRC). Massive demonstrations—primarily peaceful but punctuated by violence—roiled the city. On July 21, 2019, a mob attacked people perceived to be protesters. Police were slow to respond; many young people were injured; others rounded up and imprisoned. Several tragic cases of suicide linked directly to the sense of hopelessness felt by the territory’s youth, demonized and criminalized by the authorities and government supporters, provide the narrative foundation for this fictional composite. A group of young protesters, accompanied by a social worker with expertise in preventing suicides, race to prevent a girl’s death. As the film traces their intersecting stories, it uncovers many of the issues at the heart of protesters’ demands that went beyond the initial call to squash the extradition bill. Rounded up at protests, threatened by plainclothes police without identification, sexually harassed, beaten, and imprisoned with little cause, the band of protestors, desperately trying to find their suicidal comrade, face authorities who have no regard for their plight. Yet, divorced parents keep their rebellious children at arm’s length pursuing wealth in a rising mainland China or more opportunities in other parts of the world. This lack of interest in the life and death of these young people, who cry out to be saved as they come of age in a city darkened by political unrest and police repression, forms the basis of a story that goes beyond questions of political “martyrdom” to address the meaning of solidarity and struggle for the millennial generation in the HKSAR. Since the National Security Law (NSL) went into effect on July 1, 2020, the debates surrounding the extradition bill, which had been withdrawn, became moot. The NSL greatly surpasses the original extradition amendment in scope as it reaches beyond the borders of Hong Kong to cover offenses committed outside the territory. The story of May You Stay Forever Young ends before COVID-19 and the NSL; however, it captures the sense of political alienation and despair still palpable among many in Hong Kong. By Prof. Gina Marchetti (Department of Comparative Literature, The University of Hong Kong)