A Reflection on the 2025 Festival Theme ‘Time Will Tell’

The idiom ‘time will tell’ suggests that time unveils how the present will be perceived in the future and what will remain relevant. It acknowledges that over extended periods, political, societal, cultural, and ecological systems undergo changes, entering cycles of unpredictability that lie far beyond our imagination and control. This saying also encourages active interventions that bring new meanings to world history.

This year’s Asian Avant Garde Film Festival explores the dialectical nature of time as a concept while highlighting the agency of time itself. It presents artists’ experiences and interpretations of time that have been impactful in the past and continue to shape the present and future within the discipline of moving image. Building on last edition’s vibrant encounters and thematic focus on the body, this year’s Festival offers another interdisciplinary platform for works from the M+ Collections, licensed works, and brand new commissions to energetically converge. As the leading global museum of visual culture, M+ strives to recover lesser-known histories and make new connections across time, geographies, and diverse art practices.

Time's evolutionary essence propels us relentlessly along its flow, a phenomenon that is both a blessing and a tragedy. How often do we wish to hold on to a moment, a sensation, or a person, only to be forced to let them go? And how often are we grateful that this too shall pass, that we have distant places and futures to dream of and eventually reach? The abstract nature of this experience, which eludes conclusive scientific or philosophical explanation, is what makes it so exciting. The Festival responds to the theme with a spirit of curiosity, building on the certainty of change and the responses to the unknown that fuel and define many artists’ creative practices and our own journeys. Through over ten thematic programmes of video art and experimental cinema, artist conversations, and newly commissioned performances—Ho Tzu Nyen x Wong Hin Yan: Timepieces (Live), Timebombs! and One Hour Contract by Ali Wong Kit-yi, and The Sound of Skin: A Happening by artist collective c.95d8, Wahono, and DJ Woonji—the three-day event offers a unique immersion into various temporalities.

Our perception of time is actively shaped by the circumstances and cultures that we live in. Different moments in history can serve as a barometer for the elasticity of time. It can be political, as expressed in On the Clock: Reflections on Women's Labour; accelerated, when echoing moments of rapid modernisation in Timekeepers; rhythmic, as seen in Motion Studies; or tangibly arduous and stagnant, as in Performing Time. It can be enjoyed as Playtime!, experienced as dwell time in Screen Memories, or approached as a quotidian activity in Oxhide II. Time in Simulation appears limitless in a digital ether, while Perching and Dwelling: Nature's Time explores concepts of natural and geological time. The past may be haunting or demand correction from a present perspective, as explored in Reactivating Histories. Transitioning to the land of the dead, Time’s Return contemplates the afterlife through spiritual and cinematic rebirth. Each screening programme features historical and contemporary works that illustrate a lasting interest in their respective topics and foster intergenerational dialogue.

The programmes ‘Images Reflecting an Era—Early Avant-Garde Filmmaking in Hong Kong’ and ‘Spotlight on the M+ Asian Avant-Garde Film Circulation Library’ feature the pioneering productions of Asian filmmakers that emerged at the fringes of the mainstream between the 1960s and 1990s. Presented comparatively, they reflect the fluctuating sensibilities and sentiments during Asia’s turbulent postcolonial era, when national independence and modernisation interwove with Cold War politics, provoking major political, societal, and cultural shifts.

The Festival also critically examines the dramatic changes felt across the world since the turn of the last century, with globalisation and digitalisation continuing to transform our lifestyles. The exposure to simultaneous time and constant acceleration offers new opportunities and challenges for living a meaningful life, while capitalism’s dominant narrative of productivity, consumption, and 24/7 accessibility further complicates this question. Prominent festival guests such as Amar Kanwar, Ho Tzu Nyen, Tehching Hsieh, Chikako Yamashiro, and Ali Wong Kit-yi, whose uncompromising art and performance practices poignantly frame history within the present, will present powerful responses to these phenomena and their impact on our contemporary condition.

The diversity of the Festival programme extends from the cinema houses to the Festival Lounge. Poetic and conceptual views of time come to life through installations by Andy Li San-kit and Henry Chu, and daily participatory workshops led by artists Tiana Wong and Kinchoi Lam offer engaging hands-on activities. Celebrating the groundbreaking pluralistic expressions of Asian avant-garde artists and filmmakers, the Festival ultimately invites us to socialise and write a chapter of history together. The call to spend time consciously and meaningfully is perfectly encapsulated in Tehching Hsieh’s thought-provoking and empowering statement: ‘Life is a life sentence; life is passing time; life is freethinking.’