Housing Problems: Hong Kong

Film by Ines Gerber and Marie Bakke  

In 1935 a film entitled Housing Problems depicted the slums in London.  It’s considered the first documentary with direct testimonies from working class tenants about their living conditions.  They talked about small rooms (too small to swing a cat), crumbling walls, rotting staircases, sagging roofs, no running water, insanitary toilet facilities, no cooking facilities, bedbugs and rats… In 2014, we traveled to Hong Kong to remake this film, and what we found were people living in cage homes, small cubical spaces and rooftop squats.  It’s an update on these perennial housing themes and to echo one of the opening lines from the original film: “Now let us hear from some of the people who have to live in the slums.”