Hong Kong Mixtape documents the activist art of the Free Hong Kong movement, from the street art, to the music, the songs, the dances, the performance art, posters, sculptures, illustrations, photos, films, everything!
As Hongkongers fight back against attack on their freedom by the Chinese government, taking to the streets in unprecedented numbers, so many iconic moments are captured, and come to symbolise the hope of the movement. What happens when the wave breaks, and in the renewed tyranny, so much of that creativity is made illegal? The film charts what happens when images, gestures, and words are all criminalised. It is not simply the threat of imprisonment itself, it is cutting the chords of solidarity, isolating people in their sense of powerlessness, and slowly choking out hope.
Amazingly so many people, especially young people, find a way to persist. Luna raps, Kacey creates these beautiful artworks, and an anonymous art collective sneak their sculpture of a defiant protestor into a gallery show. Even where they are being erased, the political slogans washed off, the stickers pulled down, their ghosts are everywhere.
This is a realistic film, as the conditions to create get harder and harder, the danger closer and closer, many artist-activists are forced into exile. But as one slogan goes, ideas are bulletproof, and for as long as there are Hongkongers, wherever they might be in the world, there will be the hope of a free Hong Kong.