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Director’s Profile

Julian Lee graduated from the Royal College of Art in London with an early photographic career in Europe. He is also a writer-director with seventeen books published. A short novel he published in a Hong Kong newspaper inspired Wong Kar Wai to make [Happy Together] (1997). He then took up the director’s role to adapt two of his long novels The Accident and Night Corridor into feature films. His last film [Night Corridor] won two nominations at the Golden Horse Film Awards. The film scored nominations in 17 worldwide film festivals and was named one of the 10 best Hong Kong films of 2003. Website Cinemasie (www.cinemasie.com) stated that [Night Corridor] stands up as being the best example of what the Hong Kong independent cinema can offer and
the name of Julian Lee becomes immediately a name to remember’. His film projects include [Papa is a Rolling Stone], selected for HAF (Hong Kong Film Finance Forum) in 2006 and [Stoma], selected for Golden Horse Film Project Promotion in 2009. He was diagnosed with a rare cancer in 2007 that forced him to put his filming career on hiatus. Inspired by this first-hand experience of a battle for survival, he published the novel Stoma and is now launching it into a film.

Synopsis

Lim is an aspiring gay filmmaker in his thirties from China. During his film premiere, he falls on stage and is taken to hospital for an emergency operation. The surgeon finds out that he has a rare lethal cancer, Pseudomyxona Peritonei, something like colon cancer; there is no standard cure or treatment to prolong his life. Desperate to survive, Lim searches for experimental treatments around the world. He connects online with a mentor in the UK who has undergone a risky and complex operation that Lim needs. Lim braves a journey back to the UK where he seeks the operation and confronts his estranged brother and his forlorn lover. Squatting in his brother’s tiny flat while awaiting his operation; Lim re-unites briefly and passionately with an ex-lover, Andre who takes him on a ‘honeymoon’ trip to see the lavender fields in Provence in France. Playing the love game, Andre role-plays as a slave seeking satisfaction, diminishing Lim into the role of accomplice. Lim soon realizes he has fallen in love with Andre and this re-ignites an illusion of romantic salvation. But Lim is quickly abandoned
to face his operation alone. After his operation, Lim awakens to find the worst has happened. Lim cannot get rid of all his cancer while he has been fitted with a stoma and given a prognosis of 3 years left to live. His lover Andre announces that their love affair is over. The mounting tension between him and his brother also results in an ultimatum: Lim must move out. Having hit rock bottom Lim is still determined to salvage the few remaining pieces of his life. As Lim becomes embroiled in the trials, conflicts and despair of a cancer survivor, he expresses all of his anger and frustration on an internet blog. Another cancer survivor, Charles, reads his blog and offer daily encouragement. When Lim finally braves the journey to meet up with him, Charles has just passed away before he arrives. Lim is again plunged into solitary reflections. Confronting his own demons, Lim finds a new reason to live - to put all his strength into turning his struggle into a film script as his plea for survival and resurrect himself as a film director. On the day of launching the film, Andre suddenly turns up asking for forgiveness and demands more pleasure. Lim takes the risk of getting naked with him once more, but this time, he has to be in control.

Achievements

2020 Hong Kong International Film Festival
2020 Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival
2021 Asian Film Festival Barcelona

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