Hong Kong Early Queer Video Art + Artist Talk

Festival 2026

This screening features pioneering Hong Kong video artists Ellen Pau and Anson Mak. In the 1980s and 90s, they used video to explore queer worlds, lesbian and bisexual desire, and identities rendered invisible when homosexuality was still taboo.

Working across music video, performance, and documentary, they recontextualised pop culture through a queer lens—reclaiming Cantonese opera’s gender play and Canton pop’s homoerotic undercurrents—while magnifying the nuances of historical moments, including the AIDS epidemic and the advocacy for the Equal Opportunities Bill. Together, these works recover a forgotten lineage of LGBTQ+ history in Hong Kong. They remind us that archives are not merely records of the past, but blueprints for queer futurity.

Film Programme

Love in the Time of Cholera
dir. Ellen Pau | Hong Kong | 1989 | 5min

Song of the Goddess
dir. Ellen Pau | Hong Kong | 1992 | 7min
1992 Hi-8, single-channel, colour and sound 7min

52Hz
dir. Ellen Pau | Hong Kong | 2022 | 17min

Two Or Three Things I Know About Them
dir. Anson Mak | Hong Kong | 1991 | 28min

Same Yet Different
dir. Anson Mak | Hong Kong | 1996 | 20min

Tickets

9 May 2026, 1:00 PM

Free

Museum of the Home

Love in the Time of Cholera

1989

Directed by
Ellen Pau

Running time
4 mins

A short video made from the documentation of the Zuni Icosahedron performance October/Decameron (1988), with music composed by the pop group Tat Ming Pair. The title of the song, Forbidden Colours 禁色, alludes to homosexuality and other socially taboo relationships. The artist uses the limited video equipment availa...

Song of the Goddess

1992

Directed by
Ellen Pau

Running time
7 mins

The work pays tribute to the famous Cantonese Opera duo, Yam Kam-fai and Pak Suet-sin. Both women play the role of lovers, with Yam in male drag. They worked together on stage and in films, became so popular that Yam was known as ‘The Silver Screen Lover’, and lived with each other for most of their lives. In this ...

52Hz

2023

Directed by
Ellen Pau

Running time
16 mins

A unique whale named 52Hz vocalizes at a frequency significantly higher than the typical calls of most whale species. It is believed that other whales cannot hear their calls, leading 52Hz to be described as the ‘world’s loneliest whale’. Pau poetically connects this unique whale to the stories of a sex worker, a...

Two Or Three Things I Know About Them

1992

Directed by
Anson Mak

Running time
28 mins

This early video work by Anson Mak unfolds in four parts: found footage exploring gender ambiguity in Cantonese Opera, a dance sequence in Central, an interview with a lesbian woman, and commentary from a friend in the form of a reflexive documentary. Together, these segments probe the representation and subjectivity o...

Same Yet Different

1996

Directed by
Anson Mak

Running time
20 mins

In 1995, Anna Wu introduced a private bill on Equal Opportunities in Hong Kong covering sexual orientation, gender, age, disability, and family responsibilities. Anson Mak, with fellow activists from Queer Sister, organized playful, creative demonstrations as alternatives to traditional protests. Highlighting a pivotal...

Artist Biography

Dr. Anson Hoi Shan MAK is a filmmaker and artist from Hong Kong specialising in research-driven works. In addition to film and video, her practice encompasses phonography sound art, sound design, web-based projects, and photography on woodwork. Her work has been presented at major international festivals, including Hong Kong International Film Festival, Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, Busan International Film Festival, Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Vancouver International Film Festival, and Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, among others. Her artworks have also been exhibited at museums and galleries such as M+, Videotage, Taipei MOCA, Times Art Center Berlin, FACT Liverpool, Whitechapel Gallery London, Rockbund Art Museum Shanghai, CornerHouse Manchester, and Crossing Art New York, among others.

Additional info

This event is followed by a conversation with artist-filmmaker Anson Mak and the curator Joseph Chen.