Galentines: Women in Shorts

Thursday 5 February 2026 – Soho House HK and SOOOP present a private screening of shorts by female directors, spanning medium and genre: from animation installation to short documentary. Following the screening, guests are invited to a panel discussion and Q&A with filmmakers and writers: Louise Pau, Collen TungShuen Kwok, Sophie Colfer, Florence Yuk-Ki Lee, Natalie Chao, Kristie Ko, and Ashlyn Chak. This event is only open to private guests and Soho House members, and features a special pre-premiere screening of the new animated short: In the Beginning.

Programme

Short Documentary

From Hong Kong to Raufarhöfn: the Birthday Archives — Colleen TungShuen Kwok | 2025 | 13:29

When filmmaker Colleen travels to Raufarhöfn—a tiny, vibrant town on Iceland’s northern edge—she retraces the year her classmate Brian spent there 17 years earlier. Bound by a shared birthday and parallel journeys, their stories weave a meditation on diaspora, serendipity, and the quiet ways places shape us.

Animation Installation

Where Sights Sinks into Starlit Eyes — Florence Yuk-ki Lee | 2025 | 03:35

An 6-channel animated installation modelled after an airplane cabin window, Where Sight Sinks into Starlit Eyes places viewers in a passenger position, and reveals flight as a "gaze in motion": a perceptual practice of hovering between looking, encountering, and weightlessness. A piece inspired by Adonis’s poem “Between Your Eyes and Mine” that contemplates the emotional, mnemonic, and sensory dimensions of flight.

Short Animation

In the Beginning — Ala Nunu | 2025 | 11:07 [Special Pre-Premiere Screening]

Tonally absurd and colourful, In the Beginning features three true stories about the conflictual narratives of humans and animals that depict the absurdity of anthropocentric narratives.

One story features the doomed space probe Beresheet that aimed to deposit a backup of human civilisation on the moon but ended up releasing microscopic tardigrades; another explores how legless specimens of birds of paradise exported to Europe in the 16th Century were widely believed to be otherworldly beings that lived forever aloft; and the last depicts Covid-era Hong Kong, where many hamsters were abandoned after authorities announced a cull as a precaution against animal-to-human transmission.

Chado — Dominica Harrison | 2020 | 07:29 [BAFTA 2021 Longlist in the category ‘Short British Animation’]

During a long hot summer in the forest, Child is forced to grow up. First her Dog becomes ill, then out of the blue her Mother returns to their dacha with a new lover. Child’s world is turned upside down. With each unsettling event, her visions become stronger to the point where she decides on a dangerous decision. Chado combines digital animation and risograph printing to transform a coming of age tale into an enchanting short film.

Back to Business 啟市 — Louise Pau | 2025 | 02:00

During lunar new year, streets are empty and homes are full. When will everyone get back to business?

Panel / Q&A

Louise Pau, Collen TungShuen Kwok, Florence Yuk-Ki Lee, Natalie Chao, Kristie Ko, and Ashlyn Chak.

Moderated by Sophie Colfer.

A Closer Look: Where Sights Sinks Into Starlit Eyes

Florence Yuk-Ki Lee

2025 | Animation Installation | Dimensions Variable

Presented in this screening, we would like to note the context for Florence Yuk-Ki Lee’s Where Sights Sink Into Starlit Eyes, which was not made for screen, but rather as a 6-channel animation installation for the contemporary art museum MoNTUE.

The work, presented as a form of an animated installation modelled after an airplane cabin window, places viewers in a passenger position. Looking out through a first-person perspective, the animation traces the ascent into the sky, passing through layers of clouds, gliding above a flickering cityscape, and finally touching down in an unfamiliar destination.

For Lee, the act of seeing in flight becomes a state of suspended contemplation: Where are we headed? The eye staring out the window simultaneously looks inward, recalling memories and sensing a future yet to be named.

Set against the context of the airport, a space of perpetual movement and waiting, the "eye" becomes an interface where space, time, and distance converge. What one sees from high above is not just a landscape, but the emotional distances extended and held in suspension. Lee reveals flight as a "gaze in motion": a perceptual practice of hovering between looking, encountering, and weightlessness.

Location: MoNTUE @montue2011

Date: 2025.8.29 - 2025.11.2

Curated by Nng Project, Danson Wong, Jasmine Huang Yi-Hsuan, Ezra 張文豪

Music & Sound Design by Wenchi Liu

All images by Florence Yuk-Ki Lee