Tammy Cheung

Biography

Tammy Cheung was born in Shanghai in 1958 and moved to Hong Kong at an early age. She studiedsociology in Hong Kong and film studies at Montreal’s Concordia University. In 1986, she founded theChinese International Film Festival in Montreal, showcasing films made by Chinese film‐makers andfilms with Chinese content, and was director of the Festival from 1986 and 1992. She made her  directorial debut in 1999 and together with her collaborator and cinematographer AugustineLam she founded Reality Film Productions in Hong Kong in 2002, a production company that producesand distributes social documentaries. Her works include Invisible Women (1999), Secondary School(2002), Rice Distribution (2002), Moving (2003), War (2003), July (2004), Speaking up (2005); VillageMiddle School (2006) and Speaking up 2 (2007). Rice Distribution won the Grand Prize and Opencategory Gold Award at the 2002 Hong Kong Independent Short Film & Video Awards 2002. Her filmsutilize the observational approach characteristic of American documentarist Frederick Wiseman’sDirect Cinema style. Cheung is an engaging story‐teller, motivated by a wish to critique many of theinadequate social structures in Hong Kong, and to enable viewers to empathize with ordinary peopleand their aspirations. Tammy Cheung’s work has been presented in film festivals in Amsterdam, Rome,Seoul, Toronto, Hong Kong, Taipei, Singapore and major cities in China.