“If you’re a bird, you’d rather die singing than living a silent life,” is a Chinese saying and starts off The Hong Konger: Jimmy Lai’s extraordinary struggle for freedom, a documentary produced in 2022 by the Acton Institute whose premiere in Italy was held yesterday afternoon at the Institut Français Centre Saint-Louis in Rome.
The film tells the story of the 75-year-old Hong Kong businessman and activist, jailed for more than a thousand days because of the pro-democracy ideas he spread through the Apple Daily, the widely read independent newspaper he founded, forced to shut down by the authorities in 2021, following the promulgation of the mainland’s national security law.
Under the influence of his wife Teresa, he converted to Catholicism in 1997 and was baptised by Card Joseph Zen. During his life, he has put the fight for freedom ahead of everything else.