For movie buffs in Hong Kong, the Easter long weekend only means one thing — the Hong Kong International Film Festival. This year’s edition, the 48th, is back at full strength after struggling for a few years with our city’s burdensome covid restrictions. Spanning 12 days from 28 March, HKIFF48 will showcase over 190 films from 62 countries and regions, including five world premieres, six international premieres and 64 Asian premieres.

The festival kicked off last Thursday night with the Asian premiere of ALL SHALL BE WELL/從今以後, the bookend feature by local filmmaker Ray Yeung/楊曜愷 (SUK SUK/叔・叔) that looks at gay characters in their twilight years. The film had its world premiere at the Berlinale in February where it won the Teddy Award.

ALL SHALL BE WELL tells the story of Angie and Pat (played by Patra Au/區嘉雯 and Maggie Li/李琳琳, respectively), two seniors who have been in a lesbian relationship for decades. After Pat dies without leaving a will, Angie finds her life suddenly upended when Pat’s financially-strapped family, headed up by her younger brother Shing (Tai Bo/太保), sets claim to their dead relative’s bank accounts and the couple’s flat.

As much as attitudes in Hong Kong towards LGBTQ issues have liberalized in recent years, our government has been loathe to officially recognise same-sex unions in law. Indeed, not even civil partnerships registered outside Hong Kong are recognised by our courts. Our politicians keep claiming that Hong Kong is a conservative society but polling shows that this is no longer the case. At a Q&A session following the film’s screening, Yeung told the audience that the idea for this story came from his meeting with three women who found themselves in the exact situation that Angie finds herself in following Pat’s death. In Hong Kong, neither Angie nor those three women have any rights to their spouse’s estate no matter how long they’ve been together. Facing financial peril at such a late stage in life, they only have two options — one bad and the other horrible.

Yeung exhibits great maturity both with his protagonist and with Pat’s family. Most Hong Kong filmmakers would have turned the family into evil caricatures but Yeung simply shows them as people who lack moral fibre. One only hopes that karma bit the three real families after they cleaned out their “loved one’s” partner. Performances from both Yeung’s veteran actors, some of whom have worked with him before, and his relative newcomers are all solid, no doubt reflecting their respect for the filmmaker and empathy with the story.

ALL SHALL BE WELL will open in Hong Kong’s cinemas on May 1st. Definitely check it out when it does. It won’t push the government to suddenly wake up and embrace the notion of equality for all but it may move the needle a tiny bit further in that direction.

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