Ho Ka Cheng

Supervisor of Audio-Visual CUT Association. One of the directors of Macau Stories 1, also involved in Macau Stories 2─Love in the City and Macau Stories 3City Maze. Macau Stories 2Love in the City received a special mention at Portugal’s Avanca Film Festival, and was shown at film festivals in Tokyo and Osaka.


Film as culture and industry

06 2015 | Issue 6

There is a story about a village that produces exceptionally delicious tomatoes. The residents of the village use the tomatoes to make different dishes. The dishes were so delicious they started to attract visitors from elsewhere. Gradually, in addition to farmers who grew the tomatoes, chefs in the village or nearby started using the tomatoes in their creations too. There were salad, spaghetti, cookies, mooncakes and other things. A “tomato culture” started to sprout. Later, some tomato farmers started to become wholesalers. Then people from elsewhere followed suit and joined the business. They didn’t know how to grow tomatoes, but they knew a lot about consumers’ habits and thinking. The wholesalers started to use big data technology to collect information about the market, and started to control the tomato farmers in their production. A strong tomato supply chain was formed. In addition, there were tomato phone cases, tomato-themed music, tomato children’s stories and so on, creating a big tomato-based industry. The wholesalers made money from the tomatoes, but they did not re-invest that money back onto the tomato growers or help them improve their farming technology. The wholesalers took the money and re-invested it in real estate and financial products to get bigger returns. As these two things became more and more popular, less and less land was left for growing tomatoes. Eventually, the farmers were forced out. The village turned into a financial centre.


The above story depicts the curious connection between culture and industry. Typically, a cultural trend breeds a related industry, and what’s important is that the proceeds made from the industry are then put back to the cultural source to cultivate more talent and technology. That way, the industry can continue to develop and transform. For example, in the U.K., popular music has given rise to many different industries. The popularity of stories in the U.S. led to thriving publishing and film industries. The power of the film industry in India is related to the love for dancing and singing in Indian culture. Supernatural films are popular in Thailand in large part because of the country’s value system and cultural context. In Japan and Korea, the explosion of the film industries is a fusion of their recent political and economic history and interaction with foreign cultures.


A virtuous cycle would be when a film industry strengthens local culture, and that in turn further supports the film industry. When it reaches a certain size, the film industry will create a sort of supply chain, whereby labour will be divided into different systems working together. But how can one balance the industry supply chain with the distribution of profits? That is very important in order to prevent internal divisions and discord. Only when there is such a virtuous cycle can the industry continue to attract talented people to join.


Looking at Macao today, there are not many industries that have enough scale to create an industry supply chain. The film industry is still emerging and is not yet mature, but who says supply chains have to be big? It is important for industries to find their own development models. Microfilms are very popular in Macao at the moment, and they continue to improve in quantity and quality, slowly becoming a form of cinematic culture. The creators of these microfilms have among themselves formed a small network, supporting, competing, cooperating with one another in an organic form. The focus now is to ensure this is a virtuous cycle, so that it can ultimately lead to a similarly virtuous film culture in Macao.