In the Mood for Art (The museum M+ and the art scene in Hong Kong)
The premiere of the documentary film In the Mood for Art (The Museum M+ and the art scene in Hong Kong) by Michael Schindhelm (production Filmerei Zürich, co-production with Schweizer Fernsehen SRF) took place on 27 August 2023 at 10 a.m. at Kino Camera Basel.
The film was broadcast for the first time on Swiss television on 10 September (Sternstunde Kunst) and on 3Sat on 14 October.
Trailer: Trailer In the Mood for Art
Synopsis: Hong Kong in March 2023. Three years of pandemic lockdown and a failed political revolution have left deep scars, as has a draconian security law enforced by the central government. Many people have left their city or face an uncertain future.
But there is a spirit of optimism. In the art scene, for example. The Museum for Visual Culture M+ has opened after about ten years of construction. Designed by the star architects Herzog&deMeuron from Basel, it is one of the most important museum buildings of the 21st century. The most important collection comes from another Swiss, the entrepreneur and patron Uli Sigg, who assembled the world’s most important collection of Chinese contemporary art and donated a substantial part of it to Museum M+ in 2012.
The film accompanies the architects and the collector on their first visit to the city together since the museum was completed. In just 12 months since opening, the museum has already counted over 2 million visitors, exclusively Hong Kongers due to the lockdown.
Conversations and encounters with the director Suhanya Raffel, the chief curator Doryan Chong as well as staff, gallery owners and artists and the intrepid journalist Enid Tsui tell a chequered success story around the question of the role of this museum in the still hot debate about the future and identity of Hong Kong.
At the same time, the film provides an unusually intimate insight into the city’s newly forming art scene. After many well-known artists have left the city for political reasons and live in the diaspora, a very young new generation of artists is emerging, who are not letting security law and bureaucracy get them down and are claiming their own new voice in the subcultural underground. It is on them, the artists of tomorrow, that the hope rests that the global museum M+ will continue to show exciting art from its own city in the future.
Cast:
Enid Tsui
Bernard Chan
Suhanya Raffel
Lars Nittve
Jacques Herzog
Pierre de Meuron
Tobias Berger
Ascan Mergenthaler
Doryun Chong
Uli Sigg
Pi Li
May Fung
Ringo Lo
Igor Chan
Mimi Chun
Wang Tuo
Joseph Chen
Cas Wong
Production Filmerei GmbH
Producer Sven Rufer Luzius Müller Kaja Ramseier
Written and directed by Michael Schindhelm
Cinematography: Sven Rufer Luzius Müller
Sound Chan Chi Fung
Edit Kaja Leonie Ramseier
Music Balz Bachmann
Yanick Herzog
Sounddesign/Mix Kurt Human
Julien Joseph
Color grading Luzius Müller
Graphics Luzius Müller Lucas Cesar Vetsch
Transcription Peter Jud
In Collaboration with Schweizer Fernsehen SRF and 3sat
SRF Barbara Seiler
Urs Augsburger
3sat Nicole Pallecchi
