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Letter to the Outsiders

Letter to the Outsiders is an essay film that investigates the perception of prison, and human condition in a confined space from a personal point of view.

The film documents a series of journeys to repurposed prisons in the Netherlands. Accompanying with a voice-over reading out an unsent letter to an anonymous person, the film creates a set poetic imagery with static and long take scenes. It presents multiple meanings and tensions of these spaces by taking prison as a real space, and a metaphor of confinement. 5 years ago, before the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, I have written the script for the film Pseudo Secular. One protagonist is an activist in prison who writes a series of letters to her boyfriend. Having political prisoner in Hong Kong was still unimaginable at that time – and it only becomes a reality again only after more than 16 activists were being sent to jail in 2017.

This film as an indirect response to this imprisonment of activists, ponders issues of fear, freedom and diaspora as a universal human experience. It is also a personal therapeutic journey to overcome the fear of uncertain political situation right now at home.

It invites audience to be actively involved to read and feel these spaces on different levels, as well as contextualize it with their own experience. While watching the film within the cinema space, the film would like to provoke thought on how human perception on space are being disciplined and shaped – and if there is a way to break away from these rules around every one of us, no matter where we are.