animation
Hong Kong Cafe Let's Fight Together
is a 60-minute stop-motion animated film that done by a female amateur filmmaker Friendly Liu solely, including script, characters design and production, voices for over 70 characters, music, photo shooting, subtitle, etc. It was awarded as the Best Animated Feature Film in Festival of Animation Berlin 2018.
If you want to watch the full film, it is available here.
Teaser 1 Miss Sugar
Teaser 2 Baking Egg Tart
Alternative End The Last Day...
Story
To help Tong Tong’s father and his Hong Kong café, Tong Tong and her fantasy friends try their best to fight against their biggest enemy — HK rent. Teaming up with the HK café staff, together they have very creative approaches. Will they win at the end?
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The Story Behind
The animation began with a joke when Friendly and her brother sat in a HK cafe together in 2005. "Let's finish the animation within 10 years!" was the idea behind. However, nine year had gone, only a title and few characters were created. At the beginning of 2014, Friendly started working on it seriously. Friendly works as a freelance art director / artist, but she is not professional in animation, only that she knows she loves watching it. Without having professional study, she tried to finish the animation with her limited knowledge and tools. It was finally done on 15, June 2018, short before the submission deadline of Festival of Animation Berlin was closed.
The animation film premiere screening was held on 08.09.2018 at FAB, Festival of Animation Berlin. The usual ending was voted by 77.5% of audiences who have watched the film previously before the official launch, the animation was not completed at that time. Friendly Liu continued working on the unfinished parts and the very last scene was suggested by few audiences. The idea is to have the audience involved so that they know they are part of the force that could change the result if they want as soon as they could imagine.
The alternative ending above is the original and a bitter one, it only shows on the Internet. The director wishes to tell the audience that we could change for the better, and wishes to gather positive energy in negative situations and change what we don’t want to see. Friendly is happy that the positive ending was chosen by the audience eventually.
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Official Premiere Screening
Festival of Animation Berlin
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Date
08.09.2018
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Location
Theater Intern Dach
Danziger Str. 101, 10405 Berlin
Interview by Schön Meer
