5 - A Matter of National Security:

Summary

In the summer of 2003, around 500,000 people marched on the streets in Hong Kong in protest against the government’s attempt to introduce legislation relating to national security under Article 23 of the Basic Law. As many commentators observed at the time, the protest was also a process of identity formation: Since the demonstration presented itself as a fight to protect the city from the intrusion of repressive Chinese legal norms, it created a bond among the protestors and their supporters and fostered a sense of what it means to be a “Hong Konger.” Tammy Cheung, an independent documentary filmmaker, attempted to capture the event on film, and the result was July (2004; 七月). Her challenge was to make a cinematic record that only presents the factual unfolding of the protest, but communicates the sensation of being in the midst of its charged atmosphere and enables viewers to share the sense of community that it created. I explore what it might mean to create a record of this constitutional controversy through an analysis of the themes, structures, and cinematography of Cheung’s film.