This text by Benjamin Dodman is published by France24. Here is an excerpt:

After ten days of blazing sunshine, the rain descended on the Cannes Film Festival on Friday – a tribute, no doubt, to the defiant protesters who fashioned a global symbol of freedom out of an unlikely item: the umbrella.

The humble brolly has been an emblem of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests since 2014, first as a means of expression and then as a shield against police cameras, pepper spray, gas canisters and rubber bullets. But even the sturdiest umbrella cannot protect the protagonists of Kiwi Chow’s shocking documentary “Revolution of Our Times”, which chronicles the massive street protests that gripped Hong Kong in 2019 and their brutal suppression by police.

The secretive, last-minute inclusion of Chow’s film – announced only as a “surprise documentary” in an email to the press on Thursday – had aroused plenty of curiosity, as well as speculation that Cannes might be heading for a showdown with China’s criticism-averse authorities. As it turns out, fears of a fallout with Beijing are entirely justified: “Revolution of Our Times” is a powerful tribute to the courage and resilience of Hongkongers battling for their freedom, and an uncompromising critique of Chinese threats to the city’s semi-autonomous status.

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