Drifting from present to the past: reconfiguring an alternative discourse of Hong Kong history in the recent political documentary

The political praxis has intertwined with the complex historical narratives in documentary of the Global South since the post-colonial age. Hong Kong, as one of the prominent examples, has been a contested realm with interweaving political ideologies and international power struggles, which lead to the intricate narrative of history particularly after the unprecedented Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement since 2019. While there is an urgency for us to search for the diverse discourse of Hong Kong history, two documentary films, Blue Island (2022) and Never Rest/Unrest (2020) have delineated an alternative route to the other history of Hong Kong with the peculiar visual narrative and roam between documentation and reenactment. This conversation aims to discuss the capacity of formulating an alternative reinvention of Hong Kong history through the mediation of the two political documentaries. The use of re-enactment of Blue Island unfolds the vibrant cultural imagination and reclaims the agency to perceive the historical events in the lens of social turbulence; while Never Rest/Unrest adopts a personal perspective to undergo the social movement in 2019, in conjunction with an archival footage of the handover in 1997 which has marked a critical turning point of Hong Kong history. Through the prism of this conservation, we hope to underline the positioning of documentary in reproducing the historical discourse with the diverse visual narratives and reenactment; which can help connect the understanding between the current social movement and the history in Hong Kong.