Young filmmakers are breathing life back into the local industry

If the number of local productions screened at this year's Hong Kong Asian Film Festival is anything to go by, the city's movie industry just might be undergoing a mini renaissance, heralded by a new generation of young filmmakers.

Festival organiser Gary Mak Sing-hei says that in recent years there have been few local films to choose from. But for the festival's 10th edition, he managed to find 10 - and he says it's not just the quantity that has been impressive.

"They are all so technically sound, and have such a Hong Kong feel to them that we want to show them to the audience," he says. "A lot of these films show the directors have a strong awareness about what is happening around them, and what's happening in society."

Veteran filmmaker Benny Chan Muk-sing's crime thriller The White Storm aside, all of these local films are by relatively new directors, many of whom are appearing at the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival for the first time. Leading the pack are Juno Mak Chun-lung, the director of cult horror film Rigor Mortis, and Flora Lau, who made art house film Bends, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival and Cannes respectively.

There is also Philip Yung Tsz-kwong's social realist drama May We Chat, Lawrence Kan Kwan-chun's coming-of-age teen flick When C Goes to G7, and Ferris Lin Zeqiu's documentary Boundless, for which the filmmaker trailed director Johnnie To Kei-fung for more than two years.

Yung says that while well-established directors have been busy making blockbusters, there has been a dearth of medium- and small-scale productions in recent years.