Ann Hui picks up Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement

Hong Kong film director Ann Hui On-wah has received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 77th Venice International Film Festival.

Hui, 73, is the first Chinese female director to be honored with the award.

It was presented to Hui by Hollywood actress Cate Blanchett, the jury president for this year's festival, in the Italian city yesterday.

"I am so happy and honored," Hui said. "So happy that I cannot find the words.

"I just hope everything in the world will turn better soon and everybody can feel again as happy as I am at this moment."

Hui said she was dedicating the award to Hong Kong and hoped she could help young people in the movie industry attain their own lifetime achievements.

Festival director Alberto Barbera noted that Hui is one of Asia's most respected, prolific and versatile directors. "From the outset she has been acknowledged as one of the pivotal figures of the so-called Hong Kong New Wave - the film movement that revolutionized Hong Kong's movies during the 1970s and 1980s," he said.

That, Barbera added, transformed "the cosmopolitan city into one of the most energetic, creative centers."

Barbera said too that Hui showed interest in "compassionate and social vicissitudes" in her movies, which included stories with important social themes such as refugees, the marginalized and the elderly.

He added: "In a trailblazing fashion, through her language and her unique visual style, not only has she captured the specific aspects of the city and the imagination of Hong Kong [but] also transposed and translated them into a universal perspective."

Hui has directed about 30 feature movies after her debut film The Secret (1979) starring Taiwanese actress Sylvia Chang Ai-chia. A Simple Life (2011) starred Hong Kong's Deanie Ip Tak-han, who won the best actress award at the 68th Venice festival for her portrayal of an aging servant.

Hui's latest film, Love After Love, which was played out of competition in this year's festival, is based on a short story by Shanghai-born author Eileen Chang Ai-ling, who died in Los Angeles in 1995.

Hui told Reuters that the making of the film was a "fantastic struggle" as she had to work through the Hong Kong protests, the pandemic and complicated post-production work.

And Hui said she wanted to leave it for her work to convey her political views.

"I think it's better for me not to comment too much on the situation itself because this film is invested by Chinese companies and they have allowed us to shoot this movie with immense moral complexity, and it passed censorship with very minor cuts."