Viewer advice: Contains stroboscopic imagery

Shot on cold-hued 16mm, this mournful, restless ode to Hong Kong sketches the city’s fragile present and indefinite future.

Abandoned umbrellas, disassembled footpaths, a haircut, a shopfront, the zoo. In Simon Liu’s poetic experimental collage, busy images of daily life in Hong Kong – signals of normality, small pleasures – are collided with traces of unrest, as the recently repatriated autonomous region continues to struggle with the vice-like grip of mainland China. Premiering at New Directors / New Films in 2020 and selected for the 2021 Ammodo Tiger Short Competition at Rotterdam, Happy Valley impressionistically and sensitively captures life going on while grappling with uncertainty.