The ongoing French May festival, which offers 100 cultural programs this year, is one of the leading cultural festivals in Asia, not only bringing French culture to Hong Kong but also promoting cross-cultural exchanges, France’s top diplomat in the SAR Christile Drulhe said.

A total of 2.5 million spectators were estimated to have taken part in French May programmes since the cultural festival’s creation 32 years ago.

This year’s highlights include the flagship exhibition The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Picasso for Asia—A Conversation at the M+ Museum.

Over 60 masterpieces by Pablo Picasso will be on loan from Musée national Picasso-Paris, which holds the world’s largest public collection of the artist’s works.

They will be placed in conversation with around 130 pieces from the M+ Collections by 30 Asian and Asian-diasporic artists from the early 20th century to the present. 

Corps extrêmes or Extreme Bodies, a performance mixing dance, acrobatics and extreme sports, will be presented by Rachid Ouramdane, Director of Chaillot, National Theatre of Dance in Paris.

His performance Mobïus Morphosis was created for the Cultural Olympiad of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Another one is the original concert Echoes of the Heart featuring Cantopop star Jay Fung and French singer Joyce Jonathan, who will perform in Cantonese, French, and English.

French GourMay food and wine festival, meanwhile, takes advantage of Hong Kong’s lowered tax on spirits, to present a variety of French alcoholic products, such as Cognac, rum, whiskey and gins.

Drulhe said Hong Kong has asserted itself as a new cultural hub between the East and the West, as China and France deepen cultural exchanges.

“We see Hong Kong as kind of an outpost or a connector, that is really well placed to precisely bring France-China cultural exchanges to a new level.”

(Jamie Liu)

Well-placed connector