Shaping Hong Kong cinema’s new icon: Milkyway Image at international film festivals

This article traces the trajectory of the Hong Kong-based film production company Milkyway Image at international film festivals, reflecting on the reasons behind its rise. It examines how different kinds of festivals define the company by presenting its work and offering tribute programmes, while the company also uses film festivals to build an international reputation and to seek overseas distribution. It reveals a new route for Chinese language cinema on the festival circuit that is complementary to existing scholarship on the dynamic between this growing force and global cinematic institutions. It also presents an understanding of the efforts from production houses that operate in the contemporary Hong Kong film industry to expand local cinema’s festival presence and strengthen its international competitiveness. It argues that Milkyway provides a model of contemporary Hong Kong cinema by taking advantage of film festivals as transnational platforms against a historical context, in which the expanding, diversifying film festival circuit itself is opening up more possibilities.