Tuesday 10: 5th and Last Day Hong Kong Film Festival

Lunch with Yonfan, the director of the film Peony Pavillion, and some friends from the festival. We go to a restaurant in Soho Hong Kong, it's still the city of another time here, at least almost. We are right near the corner of Hollywood Street. A street close to the old offices of the golden age of Hong Kong cinema. From the restaurant we have a view looking down on the quarter; we can see perfectly the roofs and the terraces of buildings, it makes me think a bit of New York or of a suspended medina. We each talk of our jobs. Yonfan is a director who loves his job as much as his liberty, that's why he doesn't make too many concessions, we resemble each other and agree that it's not always the path of ease and of comfort.

I find that he has elegance and personality, I'd like to see his films. At the table I also have the pleasure of seeing an old friend from Hong Kong, Terry Boyle, who has twenty years of history in the territory. He's of English origin and was for a long time the correspondent for the Hollywood Reporter.

He knows the city by heart, it's a pleasure to speak with him, but I need more time to listen to all he has to say. After lunch, Yonfan takes us back to his place where he showers us with gifts.

After we go have coffee in a little establishment where is the co-owner. I take several pictures. I lend my camera to Yonfan, he is a real photographer, there will at least be one good one of the roll. The area we're in is starting to come into fashion, we're next to artistan shops, little grocery stores and techno stores. The old buildings still offer gray and moldy facades facing polished surfaces of glass and metal.

Hong Kong changes at the accelerated speed of our time.

It is finally time to return to France. One last meeting in the lobby of the hotel, everyone hugs. The weather is a little less bad. On the way to the airport we pass the large buildings that line the freeway. Their facades are covered in lights. Some are warm, a bit yellow and others are neon with colder colors, bluish. In the night, the mix of all the lights imprisoned in this great wall gives the impression of immense stained-glass windows.

I think of the thousands of people who live there who I will never know.

Every trip to the airport is a relief, of a feeling of accomplishment, but at the same time a moment of sadness and nostalgia. I think back on all the people who I've just met, and then to all the other who came to see our films. I think back on what we have just experienced and to the emotions that are so personal and fleeting that they are already memories. The Mercedes drops us off at the airport, it's hotter. We have time before our flight. I walk around in the huge and modern airport, there are hundreds of boutiques, millions of souvenirs for sale. But souvenirs cannot be bought, they can only be retold. And only then a little bit.

Jean Jacques Beineix