Montages of a Modern Motherhood (2025)

Interesting facts

Montages of a Modern Motherhood is a 2024 Hong Kong drama film directed and written by Oliver Chan. Marking Chan's second feature, the film stars Hedwig Tam as Jing, a postpartum mother, alongside Siuyea Lo, Janis Pang, Patra Au, and Alice Fung. It focuses on the first six months after Jing gives birth, exploring the hardships and emotions she experiences while caring for her daughter.

Production

In 2019, director-screenwriter Oliver Chan began writing the screenplay for Montages of a Modern Motherhood after completing production on her debut feature Still Human (2018). She said that the project was inspired by her changing views on motherhood after giving birth.

Pre-production took less than a year after securing funding from an independent investor, which was later revealed to be businesswoman and radio personality Winnie Yu, contributing approximately HK$7 million. Chan opened auditions for Jing to actresses who had and had not given birth. Hedwig Tam, who has neither given birth nor has plans to, was officially cast by Chan six months after her audition.

Principal photography began in November 2023, with Chan inviting Macanese cinematographer So Wai-kin to helm the shoot. Filming primarily took place in Yuen Long, spanning two weeks in winter, where Wai's family house was located in the film. Chan explained that she set the protagonists in a villa to reflect the culture of Walled villages of Hong Kong, which traditionally favored males over females.

Post-production took place in Kwun Tong, with sound design supervised by Taiwanese designers Tu Duu-chih and Chiang Yi-chen. More than 70% of the film features real baby cries recorded by the crew, which Chan described as a "difficult technical challenge", having to balance the volume of the cries with the characters' dialogues, especially during overlapping scenes.

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