Art Imitates Life

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Award-winning cross-media creator Kearen Pang’s oeuvre reflects the foibles and follies of human nature.

Fresh from winning the award for the best director of a foreign language film at the 2017 Nice International Filmmakers Festival in May with 29+1, her film directorial debut, Kearen Pang’s artistic career has come fully of age.

Twelve years after she scripted, directed and starred in her one-woman play 29+1, which went on to become one of the most popular shows in contemporary Hong Kong theatre, the actress-playwright made her film directing debut with a skilful adaptation of her successful stage play. The sensitive and uplifting movie opened her heart to wider audiences. 

The story of 29+1 revolves around two women on the cusp of the dreaded ‘30’, whose different lives and worldviews intersect serendipitously, but eventually find a new direction in life.  The drama about life, expectation and disappointment found resonance among a legion of female fans who were experiencing the same angst as the characters.

“I was 29 when I wrote the play.  I had been playing different stage roles for a while and began to wonder what it would be like to write my own script.  I wanted to write about a topic that’s close to my heart and turning 30 was a watershed moment.  It was one of those things the girls around me were obsessing about, and I had my fair share of views.  It took me six months to write, and I staged my first solo show in 2005.”  Since then Pang has not looked back.  The story about two women at life’s crossroads has been rerun eight times in Hong Kong and staged in Beijing and Macau with a bit of fine tuning and updating as time goes by. The screened theatre version was shown in cinemas in 2015, with the feature film debuting this year.