Draft:Heiward Mak Hei-yan

Heiward Mak Hei-yan (Chinese: 麥曦茵; Jyutping: mak6 hei1 jan1) is a Hong Kong film director, writer and producer. Her work has been featured at various international film festivals including Singapore, Bratislava and Fribourg. In 2011, she won a Hong Kong Film Award for Best Screenplay for her writing on Love in a Puff.. Her recent work as a director and screenwriter, Fagara, received eleven nominations, including Best Director and Best Screenplay. She has also produced films such as "Mad World" and "Fire Room," and has worked in various positions in different films. As the editor of "Drifting," she was nominated for Best Editing at the Golden Horse Awards.

Biography

Heiward Mak is a Hong Kong director and script-writer, she wrote and directed her debut High Noon at the age of 23, she was nominated for a Hong Kong Film Award for Best New Director of the 28th Hong Kong Film Awards, and participated in overseas film festivals. High Noon was given a Film of Merit by the Hong Kong Film Critics Society.

During 2009 to 2010, she wrote and directed Ex and Beside(s,) Happiness . The former was shortlisted for Golden Horse Awards to compete for the Best Adapted Screenplay, while the latter won the Best Director Award at the 24th Singapore International Film Festival. In the same year, she co-wrote Love in a Puffwith Pang Ho-cheung , which won Hong Kong Film Award for Best Screenplay. and Hong Kong Arts Development Award for Young Artist (Film and Media Arts).

In 2012, she established her production and artist management company Dumb Youth as a director and artist manager, for the purpose of supporting new actors in the industry. She also served as a script consultant, line producer, art director, editor etc. She lined up and supervised a number of independent films by new directors. She also wrote and directed DIVA, Uncertain Relationship Society (of RTHK Hong Kong Film Awards Director and Scriptwriter Series). She wrote Real Estate; produced Mad World , RTHK drama The Last Map , independent film Keening Woman , etc.

Heiward most recently wrote and directed Fagara , received eleven nominations, for Hong Kong Film Awards, including Best Director and Best Screenplay. She has also produced film project Fire Room , and has worked in various positions in different films. As the editor of Drifting, she was nominated for Best Editing at the Golden Horse Awards.

Heiward was born in 1984 and grew up in Tai Wai, Hong Kong and graduated from Sha Tin Government Secondary School. She made her mind to study visual arts because of her passion for children's illustration, and received a diploma in graphic design at Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2003. After graduation, she worked as a graphic artist before enrolling at City University of Hong Kong within the school of Creative Media.

Graduated with a BA(Hons) Degree from School of Creative Media of City University in 2006, her Final-Year Project "Lovers' Lover" won the Gold Award of Open Category in the 12th Hong Kong Independent Short Film Festival (IFVA) , and the Young Director Award of the 9th International Film Festival Hanover (International Category). In the same year, she co-wrote the film Men Suddenly In Black 2

Her works explore youth, growth, desire, bright and dark sides of human nature. The characters she created have different personalities, her inspirations come from detailed observations of people from all works of life, showing this generation's spirits. With her thoughtful depiction of love, family, friendship, and various kinds of subtle interpersonal relationships, she explores more about "self-discovery" and "self-recovery".

In 2007, she wrote and directed her first feature film "High Noon" at the age of 23. The story is about seven teens with different personalities who are in face of their dilemma of becoming adults and stepping into society. They have to deal with their broken-down relationships and youth. The film is developed with multiple protagonists, reveals social issues beneath, such as problems of the education system, ethics, broken families, and teenager suicides. This film does not follow the mainstream point of view that "teens are to be blamed". Instead, it explores young people's confusing yet complicated inner world. Heiward delicately portrays the bittersweet of youth and growth, using realistic yet poetic images to construct a cruel story for young people here in Hong Kong. The film was selected as one of the recommended films of the year by Hong Kong Film Critics Society. It was also nominated for the 28th Hong Kong Film Awards for Best New Director, and participated in overseas film festivals in Vancouver, New York, Paris, and South Korea.

In 2008, Heiward was invited by Hong Kong Film Festival to participate in Project Quattro Hong Kong. Four directors (Herman Yau, Clara Law, Heiward Mak, Fruit Chan) directed four short films respectively under the theme of "Hong Kong". Heiward's short film "We Might as Well be Strangers" is adapted from her novel "Solitary Kills—We Might as Well be Strangers". The story is about a young lady and a young man who respectively roam on the way from Tsim Sha Tsui to Prince Edward. Quiet a lot details weave together to portray a lonely night in Hong Kong. Two story lines are intertwined so it seems that the two know each other, but the ending reveals that though they have already met by chance, they have missed each other already. The flirty dialogues via phone make humorous sarcasm on how lonely people are in the city. People's seesaw in a relationship and their false hopes, are all just the same. The dazzling romantic images were blended with reality, reflecting what young people lack when it comes to self-identity and relationships.

In 2009, her writing and visual project "Solitary Kills" was serialised in "City Magazine", which is a breakthrough for her, as she develops a cross- media short story project as a director and scriptwriter. That year, she was awarded the Hong Kong Arts Development Award for Young Artist (Film and Media Arts).

In 2010, her second novel was adapted to the film "Ex", which describes the complicated and mixed feelings for ex-lover and shows how differently these young people make decisions when it comes to love, career, and the "end of adolescence". The female protagonist knows more about herself in every relationship, while the male protagonist identifies his self-worth through material life. "Every failure in your relationships is for you to know yourself better." This film was selected as closing film of the 34th Hong Kong International Film Festival and shortlisted for the Golden Horse Award for the Best Adapted Screenplay.

In 2010, she co-wrote "Love in a Puff" with Pang Ho- Cheung. The film is a romantic story starting from two smokers smoking in the alley after indoor smoking is banned in Hong Kong. This film took home the 30th Hong Kong Film Awards for the Best Screenplay.

In 2011, she directed a popular drama "Beside(s,) Happiness" for the "Women with Dreams" series on RTHK, and won the Best Director Award at the Asian Feature Category in the 24th Singapore International Film Festival.

In 2011, she filmed her third feature "DIVA", which is a double- line narrative to tell a story from the perspectives of a "Diva" and a "New Singer" respectively, to portray the circumstances of entertainment industry and the imbalance between one's career and life. This film was shortlisted for Hanoi Film Festival in Vietnam and Hong Kong Film Festival in Washington, D.C.

In 2012, Heiward started her company Dumb Youth. As a scriptwriter, director and artist manager, she found a new start of her career, devoting herself to nurturing new actors, making connections for different independent bands and artists.

Dumb Youth Artists : Actress (2010–2012) Venus Wong, Actors (2010–2023) : Sing Lam, Kaki Sham, Yatho Wong, Siuyea Lo, Singer-songwriter (2020–2024) Manson Cheung

In 2014, she lined up for creative projects on behalf of Dumb Youth, to produce, write and direct the Film TV project— "Uncertain Relationship Society". Its multi-line narrative portrays different kinds of uncertainty in a relationships, to define a variety aspects of "flirting" or "uncertainty" in a relationships. In the same year, she wrote "Real Estate", which was directed by Lawrence Lau Kwok-Cheong, portraying the work and life of Hong Kong estate agents. "Uncertain Relationship Society" and "Real Estate" are both included in the "Hong Kong Film Awards Director and Scriptwriter Series" on RTHK TV 31, starring new artists including Sing Lam, Venus Wong, Kaki Sham, Yatho Wong, Siuyea Lo and Kaman Kong. This is a fresh start of Dumb Youth, a small scale business, to discover and develop a new generation of actors, and to survive and stand out from all those big companies.

Her latest film in 2019, Fagara , received eleven nominations, including Best Director and Best Screenplay. Fagara is produced by Ann Hui and Julia Chu and starring Sammi Cheng, Kenny Bee, Megan Lai, and Li Xiaofeng. It explores family ethics, reveals misunderstanding and communication between two generations. The story takes place in three different cities, three half-sisters of different ages know each other because of the sudden death of their father. It analyzes modern women's self-value, self- acceptance and growth in a family that falls apart.