{"id":16796,"date":"2020-04-07T23:01:28","date_gmt":"2020-04-07T15:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/?p=16796"},"modified":"2021-06-23T15:45:52","modified_gmt":"2021-06-23T07:45:52","slug":"speak-for-the-unspoken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/2020\/04\/speak-for-the-unspoken\/","title":{"rendered":"Speak for the Unspoken"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Documentary director Joanna Bowers talks about her film projects, her values, and her goals as a filmmaker.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Patricia\nRicafort<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coming to Hong Kong<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While some local directors are stepping out of Hong Kong, Joanna Bowers moved here to embark on her career in film. In 2017, she produced a documentary, The Helper<\/em>, which follows the lives and struggles of domestic helpers in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2011, while\nBowers was in Los Angeles, her friend, who was moving to Hong Kong, convinced\nBowers to accompany her to help with finding an apartment. While she was in\nHong Kong, she met the CEO of a manufacturing company, who gave her a directing\nopportunity that kept her here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, almost ten years after she first moved to Hong Kong, she sees herself staying here. \u201cI think there\u2019s a lot more opportunities in Hong Kong. Hong Kong has a certain vibrancy and grittiness, and there are many unique things about Hong Kong that are interesting and attractive,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She believes\nthat living in Hong Kong has allowed her to discover and explore unique stories\nthat she would not have been able to access if she was living elsewhere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First Time as a <\/strong>Director<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before that, the\nfirst directing opportunity came to Joanna Bowers unexpectedly. In 2009, her\nfriend Maureen Ganz had written a short film, Inviolate Rose<\/em>, and he\napproached Bowers to direct it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cAfter my first day on set, working on this\nshort film, I realised I love it! This is brilliant!\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inviolate\nRose<\/em> is based on a true story of Maureen Ganz and\nher two sisters, who travelled to Ireland to scatter their mother\u2019s ashes after\nher death from cancer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to\ndirecting her first film, she never believed that a woman could become a\ndirector. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI remember, years ago, seeing Jane Campion\u2019s film The Piano<\/em> that was nominated for the Oscar, and I remember being really taken aback. It hadn\u2019t occurred to me that it was possible for a woman to be a director of a film at that level,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Joanna Bowers (left), now based in Hong Kong, has worked as a director since 2009. (Photo courtesy of Joanna Bowers)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

An Untold\nStory<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI strive to tell those stories that haven\u2019t been told before to help the person that has been overlooked to get their perspective out in the world,\u201d says Bowers. \u201cThe more diversity and different perspectives we can understand, the better for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bowers once\nco-wrote a romantic comedy featuring an interracial relationship between a Caucasian woman and an Asian man. While she\nwas able to get funding for the film, she had a hard time finding a distribution\ncompany because the\nlead in her story is an Asian male.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen my\nproducers went to the Cannes Film Festival to try and get some pre-sales on the\nfilm, they came back to me and said, \u2018We\u2019re having a difficult time selling\nthis film because it\u2019s got an Asian male romantic lead. Nobody seems to want to\nbuy that. How about this: what if, he\u2019s not Asian, he\u2019s Caucasian but grew up\nin Hong Kong?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bowers\nrefused. \u201cThat defeats the entire purpose of what the whole story\u2019s about!\u201d she\nsays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While that\nfilm was never executed, she was able to produce her feature documentary, The Helper<\/em>,\nand released it in 2017. The documentary follows the lives and struggles of\ndomestic helpers in Hong Kong. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bowers made it after realizing that nobody had made a film exploring their lives. \u201cI became fascinated by how important they were yet how unseen and unknown their stories were. I wanted to put them on a platform where they would be appreciated and be seen,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Helper<\/em> fits in well with Bowers\u2019 interest in telling women\u2019s stories. \u201cAs I\u2019ve progressed as a director, I\u2019ve become more and more conscious of how underrepresented women\u2019s stories are within the media,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Joanna Bower (left), the director and Tony Verb, the producer of the documentary, The Helper. The Singapore screening of the documentary took place at The Projector on 22 Oct 2017. It features domestic helpers. Photo by Najeer Yusof. (Photo courtesy of Joanna Bowers)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs I\u2019ve progressed as a director, I\u2019ve become more and more conscious of how underrepresented women\u2019s stories are within the media\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Life before directing and Hong Kong<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing up in\nKent, U.K., Bowers did not even think she would work in the creative\nindustries. She initially selected her GCE A-level subjects on the premise that\nshe was going to study medicine in university. \u201cI thought I was going to be a\nheart surgeon!\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet she quickly\nrealised that the sciences were not suitable for her, so she decided to pursue\na more creative career. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bowers studied\nbroadcast journalism at university. While she enjoyed learning about writing\nand video production, she realised that hard news was too dark and depressing\nfor her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, she\nset her sights on the entertainment industry. She planned to move to Los\nAngeles as a university student after seeing opportunities available\nthere.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf I want to\nbe in this industry, rather than being in the UK, which, at the time, had maybe\nfour or five channels, there\u2019s much more work and opportunity being in Los\nAngeles,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her directing\ncareer in Los Angeles, however, was short-lived. Soon after releasing her short\nfilm, the effects of the financial crisis reached her. As a new, inexperienced\ndirector, she found herself out of work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy work\ndisappeared, and it was awful for me. I had finally figured out this role in\nthe industry that I loved,\u201d she recalls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking ahead<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While her first\nfeature film is a documentary, Bowers also hopes to direct narrative film in\nthe future. At the same time, she aims to continue increasing awareness of\ncritical issues through documentary filmmaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She is in the final stages of making a documentary called Refashioned<\/em>, profiling three Hong Kong people aiming to promote sustainable fashion in various ways. \u201cThe world\u2019s changing. I watch people like Greta Thunberg, and they make you realize how much of an emergency we are facing,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cYou want to make the world a better place for your children to grow up in, and I feel like making films is my attempt at doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edited by Lambert Siu
Sub-edited by Jasper Cao<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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