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Devil’s Peak

Forum Expanded 2022
© Simon Liu
Devil’s Peak reflects on recent unprecedented shifts in the socio-cultural fabric of the artist’s homeland of Hong Kong and a nagging anxiety that hangs over daily life in the former British Colony. Highly condensed glimpses of cityscapes and everyday life form a collage of overlapping poetic narratives and coded references. The film cycles through ominous sites of social tension, lush urban spectacle, relics of imperialist legacies, and places of personal significance—such as the artist’s 500-year-old ancestral village—at a rapid, frenetic pace. By interrogating highly subjective experiences in the context of a seemingly insurmountable change in the political and cultural fabric of his native city, Liu creates a site of remembrance for a time and place that may never be as it was.
by Simon Liu USA 2021 English, Cantonese 30’ Colour & Black/White

Crew

Director Simon Liu
Cinematography Simon Liu
Editing Simon Liu
Music Simon Liu
Sound Simon Liu
Production Design Simon Liu
Producer Rachael Lawe

World Sales

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Photos

Simon Liu

Simon Liu is a film artist who seeks to build a lyrical catalogue of the rapidly evolving psychogeography of his place of origin in Hong Kong through alternative documentary forms, abstract diary films, multi-channel video installations, and 16mm projection performances. Liu’s work has been presented at film festivals and museums globally and will be in an upcoming solo program at the MoMA, New York. Liu is a 2019 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, a teacher at the Cooper Union School of Art, and a member of Negativeland: an artist-run film lab in Brooklyn. Liu is currently editing his first feature film, Staffordshire Hoard.

Filmography

2009 Flyer Boy; 11 min. 2012 Ditchwork; 24 min. 2014 Donkey Riding; 8 min. 2015 Harbour City; 14 min. · Shuffle Cove; 7 min. 2016 Sneyd Green; 10 min. · Cluster Click City Sundays; 19 min. 2017 Highview; 20 min. 2018 Star Ferry; 8 min. · Fallen Arches; 11 Min. 2019 E-Ticket; 13 min. · Signal 8; 15 min. 2020 Happy Valley; 13 min. · -force-; 9 min. 2021 CONVICTION; 9 min. · Devil’s Peak

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2022