Cultivate Film Culture with Limited Resources

By Emily Chan Iat Lam

What do most of the post-80 youth do except go on Facebook in their spare time?  Watching movies is a good suggestion as it is affordable and entertaining.  There is a non-profit organization called the Audio-Visual Association CUT (CUT) which has strived to develop a film and video culture with limited resources since 2003. CUT holds a film screening every Friday regularly. Different kinds of films, such as ancient, classic and alternative films are selected for the monthly screening.

The aim of CUT is to share films and thoughts. Ian Leung, one of the active members, who has participated as a volunteer in the operation of CUT for more than three years said that there were only one or two or even zero viewers when he first joined CUT. He felt frustrated. “Film appreciation seemed to be the fancy of the few at the time,” he said.  He started to promote the monthly film screening to his friends. The number of participants increased to more than 1000 last year. 

CUT has a special theme and selects a representative film for the theme every month. The famous Taiwan director, Edward Yang, died in 2007 and CUT held a monthly special screening to commemorate his contribution to the film industry. CUT holds various film-related activities to advocate film culture, for instance, giving workshops to local and foreign artists or filmmakers and jointly organizing activities with other art groups. CUT was an event partner with the Macao Culture Centre in the Macao International Film and Video Festival this year.

CUT focuses on advocating film culture to students in order to stimulate their interest and potential talent.  Leung is a secondary school teacher. He is crazy about films. He wants to cultivate an appreciation of films in his students. Some of the viewers began studying film or changed their major to film studies because of the influence of CUT. CUT has three objectives: Encouraging people to get to know films, writing comments on films and producing local films.  “Film is just an entertainment to many people. We try to share our thoughts through films,” Leung stated. After years of operation, CUT has developed a network of many film lovers and amateur filmmakers. They share their thoughts while they make films.

“The most difficulty is the lack of resources which include funds, human resources and equipment,” Leung said.  The fund sponsored by the government is only enough to cover the rent. They need to find other sources to acquire shooting equipment.  All of the helpers in CUT are volunteers and it has no full-time administrator to manage it. Leung added that there are many associations in Macao, so every association can only obtain limited funds. CUT accepted donations from its members in its early years, but today they try to hold as many activities as possible with their limited resources.