Lilting
Directed by Hong Khaou
Starring Ben Whishaw,
Leila Wong,
Morven Christie, and Cheng Pei-pei
United Kingdom, 2014, 86 minutes
"Delicate… hauntingly sexy and even humorous at times, this debut ...
wears its stylistic debt to In the Mood for Love on its elegant sleeve…
the gentle study of
loss builds quiet emotional power.” - David Rooney,
Variety
British-Cambodian writer-director Hong Khaou's poignant feature film debut, Lilting, winner of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival's Best Cinematography Award, and scheduled to open in New York on Friday, September 26 (at the Angelika Film Center) and in Los Angeles on Friday, October 3 (at the Sundance Sunset Cinema and Laemmle’s Playhouse) followed by a national roll out.
Lilting takes place in contemporary London and features intensely moving performances by Asian cinema’s martial arts legend Cheng Pei Pei (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) as Junn, a Cambodian-Chinese mother grieving the untimely death of her only son Kai (Andrew Leung), and Ben Whishaw (I’m Not There, Bright Star) as her son's lover, Richard.
Set in her old-fashioned ways and not fully adjusted to the foreign culture she lives in, the mother’s fragile world is suddenly disrupted by the presence of a stranger (Whishaw) whose attempts to communicate are first met with rejection and distrust. Although they don’t share a common language, Vann (Naomi Christie), a young translator hired by Richard, helps piece together the tender memories of the man they both loved, and the two strangers gradually learn to develop a bond with each other. Vann also helps Junn go through the somewhat comical courtship of a smitten English gentleman. Graceful, moving and humorous, Lilting is a gem of a chamber piece about unlikely connections and how loss can bring us together even when cultures and generations set us far apart from one another.
Prior to Lilting, 38 year-old Hong Khaou wrote and directed two short films, which were selected for the Berlin and Sundance Film Festival. In 2013, he was named one of Screen International’s "Stars of Tomorrow", and in 2014, he won the Sundance Institute/Mahinddra Global Filmmaking Award – supporting a new generation of storytellers – for his screenplay Monsoon. Khaou was selected for this Summer’s Sundance Lab for his next project.
