Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower

Director: Joe Piscatella

Institute History

  • 2017 Sundance Film Festival

Description

Audience Award: World Cinema Documentary

Sunday, January 29, 3:30 p.m., Library Center Theatre, Park City
Best of Fest: Monday, January 30, 6:00 p.m., Sundance Resort Screening Room

Joshua Wong is not your typical Hong Kong college student. Inside the bespectacled, unassuming teenager simmers a fierce political activist whose question for his compatriots is simple: Why should China decide our values? Armed with a political philosophy of Scholarism and enormous cojones, Wong is so deeply committed to his convictions that he’s willing to go up against anyone, including the Chinese regime, to fight for them.

Amid the glistening cityscape, filmmaker Joe Piscatella shows us another side of Hong Kong—where a new generation, in defiance of the ghosts of Tiananmen Square, has asserted its identity against the mood of disillusionment that ignited mass protests in 2014. A powerful, charismatic spokesperson, Joshua comes of age on screen as he rallies tens of thousands to civil disobedience as part of a 79-day campaign to shut down Hong Kong’s financial district. Determined not to "dump this problem on the next generation,” Joshua risks it all and doubles down as the crackdown intensifies, becoming the face of a movement in the process.

Screens with Tough
New light is shed on childhood cultural misunderstandings when a Chinese mother and her British-born daughter speak as adults for the first time. Some things can only be understood with maturity.

— Hussain Currimbhoy

Screening Details

Sundance Film Festival Awards

Credits

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