Surveying the list of Hong Kong filmmakers appearing in the Paris Cinema International Film Festival's 'Hong Kong In Focus' programme - during which 80 films made in the past six decades will be shown - one is inevitably drawn to the veterans who have received international acclaim throughout the years.
There's Johnnie To Kei-fung, who was in the French capital on Friday to preside over the opening of the Hong Kong showcase (a collaboration between the French event and the Hong Kong International Film Festival), which included an all-night marathon screening of four of his films and a masterclass.
Also on the list are New Wave auteur Allen Fong Yuk-ping, martial arts master Yuen Woo-ping and actress Wai Ying-hung, who will also appear later this week at meet-the-audience sessions.
Beyond these household names, however, are some that Hong Kong and Parisian cinephiles or cinema-goers will probably not know - yet. But the presence of Vicky Wong Wai-kit, Wong Chun, Leung Chung-man and Mo Lai Yan-chi at the French festival is proof of a new upswing in Hong Kong cinema, with up-and-coming directors exporting their wares abroad as their predecessors did in the 1980s and '90s.
The young quartet are in Paris as prize winners of Fresh Wave, a short film competition founded in 2005 by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (ADC) to provide under-35 filmmakers with production subsidies, mentoring, and a platform to showcase their works. And at the Paris Cinema festival, the platform is even bigger - and more international.
'The programme is a great opportunity for budding directors to learn about the audience in Europe,' says To, who masterminded the establishment of Fresh Wave as chairman of the ADC's film and media arts group. 'They can also compare their works to those produced by their European counterparts, as a review of their [own] films.'