An Asian Ghost Story
# Short Film Collage 1 - Re-making History and Memory
An Asian Ghost Story
Language: Cantonese, English
Subtitle: English and Chinese
22/10, 20:00 - 21:30
Sinema Transtopia
WANG Bo, The Netherlands, Hong Kong 2023, 37 min.
*Berlin Premiere*
Wigs were vital for the rise of the Asian economy in the post-war era. In the heyday of the
1960s, it was the number four export in Hong Kong's export-oriented industrialization. Between
Mao's China - the largest source of hair supplies, and the insatiable Western market, Hong
Kong functioned as the gateway. In 1965, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed an embargo
on "Asiatic hair" to cut off foreign currency to Communist China in the hair trade. The highly
racialized category of "Asiatic hair" was later revised as "communist hair", to enable the wig
industry to develop in U.S. allies, including mainly South Korea and Japan, which led to a
significant reconfiguration of light industry in East Asia. Departing from the moment of the
communist hair ban, through stories of movement, diaspora and migration, this project
examines the role of Hong Kong as a transient space that mediates and sanitizes the
connection between different worlds. The relationship between U.S. Imperialism and East Asia
order in the Cold War era.
Director’s Bibliography:
WANG Bo is an artist, filmmaker and researcher based in the Netherlands. His works have
been exhibited internationally, including venues like the Guggenheim Museum and Museum of
Modern Art in New York, Garage Museum in Moscow, Rotterdam Film Festival in the
Netherlands, Visions du Réel in Switzerland, Image Forum Festival in Tokyo, DMZ Docs in
South Korea, Times Museum in Guangzhou, Para Site in Hong Kong, among many others. He
received a fellowship from the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar in 2013 and was an
artist-in-residency at ACC-Rijksakademie 2017-2018 and NTU CCA in 2016.
​
Festivals / Awards:
-The New: Vision Award, Copenhagen International Documentary Festival 2023
-“Spinning East Asia Series II: A Net (Dis)entangled”, Hong Kong’s Centre for Heritage,
Arts and Textile 2022