The Life is Art Festival 2021 takes place from 27 August to 30 September at MOViE MOVIE Pacific Place, MOViE MOViE Cityplaza, and other Broadway Circuit cinemas. The annual film festival celebrates the myriad of different mediums of the arts through workshops, interviews, film screenings, and multi-cultural events.
World Premiere
Life is Art 2021, in cooperation with Hong Kong Sinfonietta, opens with the world premiere of BACK ON STAGE III: DESTINY. Embracing the theme of fate, BACK ON STAGE III: DESTINY is the third instalment of Hong Kong Sinfonietta’s long-anticipated concert film series.
Closing the festival, ALL-STAR TINY GALAXY @WONTONMEEN takes place at a hostel named WONTONMEEN in Sham Shui Po, interweaving orchestral music with Hong Kong culture.
Other world premieres include VIVE LA MUSIQUE!, which captures the intimate expression of musicians with omnipresent cameras positioned throughout the concert hall.
Hong Kong Premiere
Screening in Hong Kong for the first time, MAX RICHTERS’ SLEEP intersects neuroscience with music. EXHIBITION ON SCREEN: SUNFLOWERS is an expedition through Van Gogh’s iconic sunflower paintings; BOTERO introduces defining artist Fernando Botero and his journey to the pinnacle of the art world.
Life is Art Festival also probes into niche disciplines that are rarely discussed, from fashion to architecture and theatre. REFASHIONED advocates sustainable fashion; THE ELBPHILHARMONIE – HAMBURG’S NEWS LANDMARK traces the construction of one of the world’s best concert halls; AALTO revisits the humanistic architecture designed by the modernist couple, Alvar and Aino Aalto; MARTHA: A PICTURE STORY captures the life of street art photographer Martha Cooper; BAD ACTING XTRA shares the bittersweet stories of well-known theatre director Olivia Yan and her students; ROMEO & JULIET (NT LIVE) is a contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy and an innovative hybrid that captures the raw theatricality of a play in a well-edited film. Premiering at the cinema, multi-disciplinary artist Samson Young delivers an unsettling muted performance through optics in MUTED SITUATION #22: MUTED TCHAIKOVSKY’S 5TH.