In the middle of the traditional “Hungry Ghost Festival”, a new local microfilm was released on Sunday about a young couple who choose a haunted flat as their love nest due to its lower price, but it turns out to be tragic decision.
Local film director and co-writer of the film Oliver Fa shared the idea behind the film with The Macau Post Daily yesterday via an online interview.
According to Fa, Home Sweet Home is part of his “Our City Our Tales” series, launched in 2017. It comprises online talk shows with guests to share their paranormal stories, complete with horror microfilms to kick off the tales of Macau.
Fa said that there isn’t actually a “ghost” in any of his paranormal stories. “This is because I’m not trying to get the audience to become superstitious or to cause terror to the public, but as a way to warn people about something,” Fa added, saying that Home Sweet Home is conveying an important message that suicide cannot solve problems, focusing on the mental stress that people are under nowadays, as he believes the film has an educational purpose in it.
Noting that the series “Our City Our Tales” was inspired by an old local radio programme about ghost stories, which were collected in Macau, Fa found that Macau’s supernatural stories are popular with local audiences, and as such, Fa said, he and his production team discovered the fun of making such supernatural stories.
The film was officially broadcast on their YouTube Channel “Our City Our Tales” on Sunday, in the middle of the Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival. Fa said the timing was chosen to deepen the impression and interest of the audience, and Fa said he welcomed viewers to share their own stories so that he and his production team could turn more local stories into films.
Traditionally, the Hungry Ghost Festival is a festival that begins on the 14th day of the 7th month of the lunar calendar. According to traditional Chinese stories, this festival is meant to appease the hungry ghosts who died under tragic circumstances and have been denied entry into heaven, so people pay homage to the unknown wandering spirits in order that they do not bring worshippers misfortune and troubles.
Co-writer of Home Sweet Home, Jelly Ko said the story was inspired by his own experience five years ago when he and his partner were looking for a rental property and had been looking at many flats that “looked perfectly normal” in photographs, but when they actually went to the site, the flats were “completely haunted”.
Ko recalled asking his wife a question – are you afraid to rent a haunted flat? Ho admitted he had a crazy fantasy that if the flat had become haunted because someone died in it, it then might become more affordable. “I found it completely twisted and tragic to sacrifice a family member to have a home of one’s own”, and that was how Home Sweet Home came out.
So far, “Our City Our Tales” series has a combined total of 197,000 views on Facebook.
Anyone who finds it interesting can search Facebook and YouTube for “Our City Our Tales” to check out more videos about ghosts and paranormal themes.
Videograb from microfilm Home Sweet Home
Undated file photo of local film director and co-writer of Home Sweet Home Oliver Fa
