a-summer-ghost-story_sister

tales from the city

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Something’s missing

Early summer nights in Macau are sometimes pretty foggy and grey, which makes for an excellent backdrop for telling some mysterious stories.

Directed by Kaiu Choy, A Summer Ghost Story is an urban myth about a missing person.  The director admits that this is not actually a ghost story, but it is a story that has been in her mind for a long time.

“I was going to write a story about Old Taipa. My parents grew up there and it was my playground when I was a kid. There are lots of memories.”

“When I went back to the places where I used to hang out, I could recall all the ghost stories my mother used to tell me. One of them was about Travessa dos Ladrões (the Street of Thieves) a place that reportedly people didn’t come out of once they had walked in. Those stories are my childhood memories, which prompted me to write a story about missing or losing things.”

When she returned to Taipa recently however, she found that the place was no longer how it used to be.  Although she visited some locations in Taipa before writing the script, she was unable to film there due to the fact that those places were disappearing or had changed more quickly than she expected. Eventually, she had to film the scene in a different location on Rua dos Ervanarios in Macau.

Filming in a crowded area meant she had to struggle with crowd control. However, she found that she actually enjoyed filming in Macau.

“During the filming process, people on the streets were willing to help or tolerate us. We also rented a store to film in for a whole day, and the owner was very helpful too. I think filming in Macau was pretty good in this regard.”

This is the first time Kaiu is taking part in the Macao Indies. She is glad to present her first (relatively) long video in Macau. However, she stresses that she did not make this video only for Macau locals. She hopes that people can relate to her work regardless of their background.

 

Remembering Refugees

The idea of being a “refugee” may seem foreign to Macau residents nowadays. But several decades ago, Macau was actually on the front line of a refugee crisis, and eventually hosted thousands of asylum seekers.

Filipa Queiroz, who is currently working at TDM as a reporter, directed the documentary Boat People, which presents the story of former Vietnamese refugees in Macau.

Arriving in Macau six years ago, Filipa has always been inspired by the history of the territory. She is especially interested in the stories of marginalized groups.

“Last year my colleague and great friend Lina Ferreira and I were looking for a good story to uncover.  At first we were going to try the former Shanghai refugees, her idea, but the problem was that we couldn’t find any living witnesses to talk to. That’s when suddenly the story of this documentary literally fell into my email box.”

Filipa previously filmed another documentary called Once Upon a Time in Ka Ho, which was later uploaded onto the Internet. One of the protagonists of Boat People saw the documentary and wrote to her after seeing the video to tell Filipa of his story.

“In the end he said he was going to visit Macau soon and asked if we were willing to meet him. I immediately called Lina and told her: “Lina, we’ve got our story”.

Some of the difficulties Filipa and her team encountered during the shooting included gaining access to some locations and finding people who were willing to talk to them.

“Refugees are still a taboo subject and some people thought that only Father Lancelot, the person responsible for refugee affairs in Macau at the time, was authorised to talk about it. Unfortunately he has already passed away, but we found a way to include his testimony in the documentary.”

Filipa hopes that the documentary can help to enrich people’s knowledge about Macau and the world, as well as provoke reflection on this very challenging issue.

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