First Night Nerves

Screening

Two Sisters is a new play, written and directed by the trans woman Ouyang An, which will have its first night in Hong Kong’s venerable City Hall soon. In the last seven days of rehearsals many hidden tensions rise to the surface, sparked by the longstanding rivalry between the two lead actresses Yuan Xiuling (a stage veteran making her comeback a year after the death of her faithless husband) and He Yuwen (a smart movie actress making her stage debut).

Born in 1957, Stanley KWAN graduated from the Hong Kong Baptist College with a degree in mass communications. He once landed a job at Hong Kong’s Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) before working as production assistant for Ann HUI (A Simple Life) and other Hong Kong directors. His debut feature, Women (1985), starring Chow Yun-fat, was a major box office success. As a key figure in the Hong Kong Second Wave, Kwan constantly explores the power of female protagonists and their romantic struggles with sympathetic eyes, and such directorial credits include Rouge (1987), Full Moon in New York (1989), Center Stage (1992), Red Rose White Rose (1994) and Everlasting Regret (2005). His documentary, Yang ± Yin: Gender in Chinese Cinema (1996), will also be screened at our festival on August 17.