Dr Hing Tsang
Senior Lecturer in Digital Film Production
- Phone
- +44 (0)1473 338851
- h.tsang@uos.ac.uk
- School/Directorate
- School of Technology, Business and Arts
Hing Tsang was trained as a documentarist at the National Film and Television School. He worked for several years as a technician in the television and film industry before completing a PhD at the University of Lincoln. He is also the author of “Semiotics and Documentary Film” (2013) De Gruyter Mouton and has written numerous articles about documentary, fiction and experimental practice. He remains active as a practitioner and his work has been seen in festivals in the UK Europe and Latin America.
Introduction Part 2
Documentary
Drama
Final Project
Dissertation (contributor)
Development and Pre-Production (contributor)
Documentary practice, American pragmatism, sign theory, bio-semiotics, visual anthropology, Experimental Film, Asian film.
Publications
‘Semiotics of documentary: Pictures, diagrams, and the art of reasoning’ in Amir Biglari (ed) Open Semiotics. Volume 3 Texts, Images, Arts (Paris: L’Harmattan 2023).
'Drawing, Diagrammatic Experimentation and Deliberative Agency in Rithy Panh's Papier ne peut pas Envelopper la Braise', Southern Semiotic Review, 9, 2018, pp. 31-46.
‘The poetics of (social) mise-en-scène and transcendence in Li Shaohong’s Stolen Life’, Asian Cinema, 29, 2, 2018, pp.243–60.
‘Rethinking Ability and Disability in the Work of Van der Keuken’, in C. Brylla and H. Hughes (eds.), Documentary and Disability (London: Palgrave Macmillan 2017), pp.115-128.
‘Documentary and ecosemiotics: Frames and faces in the work of Johan van der Keuken’, Sign System Studies, 4, 1-2, 2016, pp.186-208.
‘Jon Jost's The Bed you Sleep In: Art, Truth and Subversion’, Jump Cut 57, Fall 2016.
‘Semeiotic Memory, Mass Murder and Agonism in Rithy Panh’s S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine’, Southern Semiotic Review, (Issue 4), 2014.
Semiotics and Documentary: The Living Sign in the Cinema. (Boston: Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton 2013).
'Christians, Jews, and Moors in the work of Van der Keuken', Interventions, 14, 3, 2012, pp. 410-428.
'Emotion, documentary, and Van der Keuken's Face Value', Studies in Documentary Film, 5, 1, 2011, pp.17-30.
H.Tsang, 'Mobile Topography in the work of Van der Keuken', in Francois Penz and Andong Lu (eds.) Urban Cinematics: Understanding Urban Phenomena through the Moving Image 2 (University of Chicago Press. 2011), pp. 137 - 156.
H.Tsang. 'Rural America', in John Berra (ed.) Directory of World Cinema: American Independent (London: Intellect 2010). pp. 240 -243.
'The Subject and the indexicality of the photograph' (with B.Winston), Semiotica, 17, 1-4, 2009, pp. 453-469.
Selected Conference Papers
‘Embodiment, Habit, and Visuality: The Implications for Theory and Practice’ Keynote Speech at SENSA Laboratory of Semiotics, Ethnosemiotics, Nonfictional Studies and Audiovisuality) University of Cork, February 2023.
‘The Animated Forest: Puppetry, landscape, animals and plants’ Animals and Landscapes Symposium. Edgehill University, November 2022.
‘Reflexive Tropes and the Poetics of Self in Li Shao-hongs Stolen Life’ Poetics of Asian Cinema conference, Lancaster University, July 2017.
‘Camera and Body Puppetry’ NECS Sense and Sensibilities Conference, Paris June 2017.
"Pointed or Pointless? Recalibrating the Index" Keynote Speech at the Photographers' Gallery London, June 2017.
‘Kampuchean voice and identity in Rithy Panh’s the Missing Image: voice, identity and selfhood’ MeCCSA Practice Network Symposium, Wales, June 2015.
‘Tragedy, Semiosis and Community in two films by Jon Jost.’ Research Seminar, University of Essex, March 2015.
‘Voice and agency in the work of Rithy Panh.’ (presented at the Voice and Documentary symposium, University of Surrey, September 2014).
‘Semiosis, Self, Camera, and Nature.’ Film Philosophy Conference, University of Glasgow, July 2014.
‘Reframing: Non-Human Umwelt and Human Animal Lebenswelt in the Work of van der Keuken.’ Framing Nature: Signs, Stories, and Ecologies of Meaning conference, University of Tartu, May 2014.
Film Screenings (selected)
The Forest Within (37 mins) 2024
Himachal Short Film Festival, Himachal, India, Dec 2024.
FICAA, Coyoacán, Mexico, Dec 2024.
We Make Movies International Film Festival, Los Angeles, USA, November, 2024.
Trujillo International Independent Film Festival, Trujillo, Peru, September 2024.
AA29 Video Project, Milan, Italy, June 2024.
Post-Cinema Film Festival, Siracusa, Italy, May 2024.
AWARDS: Halicarnassus Film Festival, Bodrum Turkey, September 2024 (Best short experimental film)
The Flow of Shadows (18 mins) 2024.
AA29 Video Project, Milan, Italy,June 2025.
Festival Internacional Cine en las Montañas, Salento, Colombia, June 2025.
Post-Cinema Film Festival, Siracusa, Italy, May 2025.
Inca Imperial International Film Festival, Lima, Peru, May 2025.
The Poetic Phonotheque, Copenhagen, Denmark, March 2025.
Kerala Short Film Festival, Kerala, India, March 2025.
West Bengal Short Film Festival, Kolkata, India November 2024.
Ridgway Independent Film Fest, Ridgway, USA, November 2024.
We Make Movies International Film Festival, Los Angeles, USA, November 2024.
Athens International Digital Film Festival AIDFF, Athens, Greece, November 2024.
Goa Short Film Festival, Goa, India, October 2024.
Alibag Short Film Festival, Alibag, India, Oct 2024.
Underexposed Film Festival yc, Roxhill, USA, April 2024.
Alternating Currents Film Festival, Davenport, USA, August 2024.
A Lyte in the Dark, Princeton, USA, July 2024.
Portugal Indie Film Festival, Cascais, Portugal, July 2024.
Francigena Film Festival, Francigena, Italy, September 2024.
STOP CADRU International Film Festival, Arges, Romania, July 2024.
Pune Short Film Festival, Pune, India, June 2024.
AWARDS: Ealing Film Festiva, London UK, November 2024 (winner of Best Experimental Film).
Muyuna - Festival Internacional de Cine Selvático Flotante, Peru, May 2024 (Winner of Best Experimental Film).
Amazon Visions (55 mins) 2024) (This is film combining The Forest Within and The Flow of Shadows)
Babo Eco Film Festival, Hyderbad India, June 2025.
Wandsworth Arts Fringe, London UK, June 2024.
La Città Reale (16 mins) 2020.
Wandsworth Arts Fringe, London, UK. June 2025.
Porto Viejo Film Festival, Portoviejo, Ecuador, June 2025.
Pune Short Film Festival, Pune, India June 2025.
Festival de Largos y Cortos, Santiago, Chile, March 2025.
The Poetic Phonoteque, Copenhagen, Denmark, October 2024.
Cauldron International Film and Video Festival, Salt Lake City, USA May 2024.
The Persian Independant Experimental Short Film Festival, Tehran, Iran February 2022.
Esto es para Esto, Jan 2022, Alternating Currents Film Festival, August 2021.
Athens International Digital Film Festival, Athens, Greece, December 2021.
Vastlab Experimental, Los Angeles, USA. Nov 2021.
Alternating Currents Film Festival, Davenport, USA, August 2021.
Buzz Vicious International Film Festival, Romaina, Brazil, July 2021.
We Make Movies International Film Festival Los Angeles, USA, April 2021.
6th Photometria in Motion, Ioannina, Greece, March 2021.
Strangelove Time-based Media Festival, Folkestone, UK, July 2020.
Darkroom Festival, London, UK, September 2020.
FilmArte Festival, Berlin Germany, Oct 2020.
Festival Fotogenia, Mexico City, Mexico, Nov 2020.
AWARDS: Ephémère, London experimental film, July 2024 (Winner of the “Maya Deren Award for Visionary Cinematography” and the “Bruce Baillie Commendation for Pioneering Sound Design”),
The Last Martial Arts (8 mins) 2020.
Stuff MX Film Festival, Mexico City, Mexico, Nov 2022.
Walthamstow International Film Festival, Walthamstow, London, UK, June 2022.
GreenScreen Film Fest, Online, March 2022.
The Persian Independent Experimental Short Film Festival, Tehran, Iran, Feb 2022.
Esto es para Esto, Monterrey, Mexico, Jan 2022.
MicroActs Artist Film Screening, London UK, Sept 2021.
Experimental Film Fest, New Bern, USA, September 2021.
Lisbon Film Rendezvous, Lisbon, Portugal, June2021.
Vastlab Experimental, Los Angeles, USA, Dec 2020.
AWARDS Splice Film Fest, New York, USA, (Best Experimental Film). June 2021.
Confluence (4 mins 30) 2020.
Splice Film Fest, New York, USA, June 2022.
Deptford Cinema Film Festival, Deptford, London, January 2021.
Greenscreen Film Fest, Online, November 2020.
Walthamstow International Film Festival, London, UK, October 2020.
Seaworld (18 mins) 2015.
The Hazel Eye Film Festival, Nashville, USA, April 2019.
Festival ECRÃ, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 2018.
Slow Cinema Symposium 2, London, UK. July 2016.
Feel the Reel International Film Festival, Online, October 2016.
FEDAXV Festival Diseno AudioVIsual, Valdivia, Chile, October 2016.
Espacio Enter, Canary Islands, Spain, December 2016.
Bucharest Short Cut Fest, Bucharest, Romania, December 2016.
AWARDS: SeeMôr Film Festival, Anglesey, UK, October 2016, (winner of Best Artist's Film).
Ayahuasca (8mins) 2015.
Avant Edge Film Festival CEFF, Chicago, USA, December 2016.
Espacio Enter, Canary Islands, Spain, December 2016.