We Have Boots (2020)

• 73%
• 2020
• Documentary
• Evans Chan
• Benny Tai Yiu-ting
• Shiu Ka-chun
• Agnes Chow

While harking back to Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement of 2014, We Have Boots focuses on the post-Umbrella era of prosecution, political disqualification, and the resurfacing of Occupy and mass protests in 2019. Featuring Occupy leaders Benny Tai and Chan Kin-man; legislator Shiu Ka-chun; artist Kacey Wong; and young activists, such as Agnes Chow, Tommy Cheung, Nobel Peace Prize nominee Alex Chow, Ray Wong, Hong Kong's first political refugee now residing in Germany, as well as masked militant protesters, the film depicts their personal reflections on their chosen paths - fleeing Hong Kong, pursuing studies overseas, accepting the political cost of dissent by confronting the prospect of imprisonment, or embracing militant combats on the street. A sequel to Raise the Umbrellas, which was about Hong Kong's battle for universal suffrage, We Have Boots is both a portrait of the genealogy of dissent in a post-colonial Chinese city, and of struggles waged, said Time magazine, "on the frontlines of a global battle for freedom." The title of the film is inspired by a poem by the African American poet, Nikki Giovanni: "We begin a poem / with longing / and end with / responsibility / And laugh / all through the storms / that are bound / to come / We have umbrellas / We have boots / We have each / other.