Hong Kong documentary pulled from cinemas 3 years ago to be screened in Italy

An award-winning documentary capturing the lives of six girls over 10 years by Hong Kong director Mabel Cheung Yuen-ting will be screened at a film festival in Italy, three years after it was pulled from local cinemas due to a lack of consent from interviewees.To My Nineteen-Year-Old Self, which centres on Ying Wa Girls’ School, was one of the four special screenings revealed in the Far East Film Festival’s line-up on Thursday.The film festival, to be held between April 24 and May 2 in Udine, Italy, listed the documentary among 24 titles in its “out of competition” section – a category for films of “extreme value” that do not meet certain event requirements.Cheung and co-director William Kwok Wai-lun, along with a producer, two unit directors and a post-production coordinator for the documentary, were also on the film festival’s guest list, which was shared on the same day.Cheung reportedly said the screening was handled by the documentary’s distributor, Golden Scene.The South China Morning Post has reached out to Cheung, Golden Scene and the Ying Wa Girls’ School for comment.The documentary was pulled from screening in Hong Kong cinemas four days after its official release in February 2023, amid a brewing controversy over the lack of consent from interviewees.