Hong Kong / 94 mins

Filmmaker / Theatre Practitioner (Hong Kong)

An award-winning film director born in Hong Kong, who initiated various theatre productions and cross-cultural exchange programs, participated as theatre director, video designer and curator. Those programs involving diverse background performing artists in Asia. Cheuk’s documentaries and theatre pieces identified scenario of performing artists with compelling significance which he believes real life stories could influence others and empower changes. The selected two films depict performers in the realm of performing arts when choices determine their destiny, uncertainty and ambiguity. This is a recurrent theme in his works and his special affinity with body and performance making continues.

My Next Step

2015 / 66 mins / Mandarin / Chinese & English Subtitles

Kunqu, one of the oldest existing forms of performing art in China, has once again risen to attention after being recognised as an Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO in 2001. My Next Step follows the story of a Kunqu performer, Yang Yang, skilled in acrobatics and martial arts. With years of martial arts training, his body is defined by the role of wusheng (martial hero). The camera depicted Yang’s martial art movement in dance like elegance. However, the wusheng role is marginalized as Kunqu scripts focused on romance, his opportunities are few and dwindling. As the last young wusheng in the troupe, Yang faces with deep ambivalence to commit his life preserving this fading art form. How does he ends up working with avant-garde Hong Kong director Danny Yung and struggle to develop an experimental Kunqu production of his own that challenges traditional conceptions of the art form? Despite ambiguity of the future, he insists taking bold steps ahead.

Stillness in the Wave

2022 / 28 mins / Cantonese & Mandarin / Chinese & English subtitles / World Premiere

This documentary charts the progress of Hong Kong Dance Company as it embarks on a journey of exploration. Through their encounters with different physical disciplines and philosophies, meditation, and Chinese martial arts, the artistic team absorbs new energies and sensibilities. They candidly reveal their fears, self-doubts, and findings in their quest to refine their dance forms and express their cultural roots. It’s an uncertain journey towards the cultivation of inner peace and the essence of movement and stillness.