While Hong Kong is in the clutches of an increasingly repressive climate under the National Security Law, independent filmmakers Elysa Wendi and Wai Shing Lee offer a powerful socio-artistic reflection on censorship of artistic expression and the political potential of cinema with their essay film Room 404, selected at the Berlinale Forum Expanded. Since 2020, the Hong Kong citizens’ right for freedom of speech in the media has been restricted. Protests from social movements are often met with violence from the authorities, leaving the artists to wonder what purpose they serve in the midst of a political and social struggle.

Having established fruitful collaboration with previous hybrid documentary projects, Wendi and Wai Shing’s Room 404 serves as an essayistic response to their preceding documentary Room 525 (2019), encouraging cooperation between artists under the repressive regime. Uniting voices of Southeast Asian artists in a hotel room, taking inspiration from the concept of Wim Wenders’ documentary Room 666 (1982), they provide a platform to share and express anger, unease and desire for resistance. Caught between the responsibility to capture the social struggle while acknowledging their privileged positions as artists, the filmmaker duo offer a place for collective questioning in times of subjugation, revealing the political potential of the audiovisual medium by merging personal experiences with societal critique.

Room 404 is part of a larger block on the political-economic transformation of Hong Kong, and its effects.