Shooting of Big Blue Lake took place in Ho Chung, Tsang's home village in Hong Kong's New Territories. Provided to China Daily

A film in Hong Kong sharpens the focus on returning emigrants, and the historic intangible heritage that lies within the New Territories - village architecture, village feasts, and village festivals held once every decade. Rebecca Lo talks to a young director who revisited childhood memories to understand her village antecedents better.

Write about what you know. That was advice Jane Austen heeded when she bucked the trend of prevailing novels of her time that were written by men, mostly on wars set in far-flung places. This wisdom also guides director and screenwriter Jessey Tsang Tsui Shan who captured what she knows best in her documentary-style film Big Blue Lake. And, like Austen's seminal works, this film is a little story that resonates big. Those expecting a stereotypical Hong Kong bang-bang triad movie will be disappointed.

There are no martial arts or wire-assisted stunts. There are no action heroes. No one gets shot. In fact, there isn't even a building over three stories high or a single shopping mall. Yet for a film that looks like it could be almost anywhere, Big Blue Lake can only be made in Hong Kong, about Hong Kong and with Hong Kong people lighting up the screen.

Big Blue Lake is a story about returning home, and finding that the memories taken for granted may not be what they seem - but that does not make them any less valid or real. In that sense, the film echoes way beyond the small village of Ho Chung nestled in the green hills of Hong Kong's Sai Kung.

The plot? After living abroad for a decade, 30-something actress Cheung Lai Yee (Leila Tong, pictured above), returns to her ancestral home to find her father away, her mother confused and her memories of swimming in a big blue lake not quite right. Then she meets Lin Jin (Lawrence Chou) a boy she knew in school who has also returned home seeking his own resolution to false memories - and finds that she likes having him around.

Tsang herself is from Ho Chung. She still lives there although she has her own place a short distance from the house where she grew up.

After graduating with a major in sound design from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts' (APA) School of Film and Television in 2001, she won a silver award for her first short film, Lonely Planet, at The Hong Kong Short Film and Video Awards in 2004.

She obtained a master's degree in Media Design and Technology from City University of Hong Kong's Fine Art Department and worked as assistant director, location sound assistant and production coordinator for films such as Ang Lee's Lust, Caution and Hollywood blockbuster The Mummy 3. In 2008, she unveiled her first feature film, Lovers on the Run, a romance set in Beijing.

Tsang has enjoyed a close relationship with the Hong Kong Arts Centre that dates back to her student days.

"When I was studying at APA, I was always over there to watch movies," she recalls. "My first job was at the Arts Centre, helping with programming and administration for two years. After Lovers on the Run, I wanted to do a feature about coming home. I've travelled a lot and though a lot of places were incredible, I think the most special part about being away is coming home."

"Jessey pitched me the concept to Big Blue Lake and I gave her some comments," explained Connie Lam, executive director of Hong Kong Arts Centre, which provided production support for the project.

"We asked what her needs were and provided solution for those needs. We helped with administration, found her a donor and supported her filming in high definition. Different artists require different things. Our support is not necessarily financial."

Big Blue Lake is Hong Kong Arts Centre's first full-length feature film, though it has collaborated with numerous filmmakers in the past on smaller projects.

"This project goes back to our fundamental mandate of promoting contemporary art through exhibition and education," Lam explains. "We focus on cultural exchange between local and international artists, and try to pave the way for young talent and new blood."

Lam feels that Tsang's documentary background gives her films a quality that cements them in reality - a magical realism that on a visual level doubles as a postcard for Hong Kong's countryside. Lam herself is an avid hiker, and she notes that many visitors are unaware that there are walking trails within half an hour of every urban area.

"Big Blue Lake is much more moving than I expected," she says. "In simple scenes such as family meals, you can see the layers of emotions through facial expressions and small gestures. It is filmed very poetically. The way Jessey tells her story makes you question whether it's fiction or documentary. It's like the mysterious lake in the title. Is the legend of the lake real?"

"When I was small, I would go to swim in a lake on top of a hill," confesses Tsang. "I always remembered it as being called Big Blue Lake. One day, as an adult, I thought I would search for it, just like Cheung Lai Yee does in the film. But then it clicked suddenly that it actually had another name-and it turned out to be more a pond than a lake! I found this concept of faulty memory intriguing.

"The mother in Big Blue Lake has Alzheimer's and her faulty memory became a metaphor for a forgotten place. When you're young, you think that what you read or learn is the absolute truth - but in actuality, the memory may be incorrect."

Like her heroine, Tsang found herself a bit of an outsider when she was growing up in traditional Ho Chung. Other parents would warn their children not to play with her because she was different. Making Big Blue Lake at home - literally, using her grandmother's Ho Chung village house to shoot the film's main interiors and casting her parents in key roles alongside longtime village residents with no acting experience - was Tsang's way of giving back to her community while commenting upon the changes affecting Hong Kong's rural areas.

"The most unique part about Ho Chung was the river," she reminisces. "It is now a tiny creek. The fields have all become houses. You have to really search to find open spaces.

"But I can't protest too much. I live there. My family lives there. I can maybe write a song about how I feel. Or make a film about the thing closest to my heart. It is something I feel I should do."

Big Blue Lake had its world premiere in early October at the Vancouver International Film Festival, and its screening coincided with the Canadian Thanksgiving holiday. The Lai family, originally from Ho Chung, attended the screening along with Tsang.

"One of the viewers told me that it was a great Thanksgiving gift," Tsang says.

"Another lady cried during the screening. Vancouver was a very appropriate audience for this film."

Getting Big Blue Lake into theaters took three years, with the majority of the photography done in 2010.

Tsang feels fortunate that she was able to capture the Tai Ping Ching Chui (or Dijiao) festival at the end of her film, which is held in Ho Chung once every decade and involves the entire community in parades and pageantry to celebrate the health and prosperity of the village.

Many former residents living abroad come home then to catch up with neighbors and friends. It's a colorful festival that is repeated in a variety of forms and at different times throughout Hong Kong's indigenous communities.

Perhaps the most visible version is the annual Cheung Chau Bun Festival, held now on the same day as Buddha's Birthday and a public holiday for the city.

"I feel like a farmer and making a movie is like planting a delicious crop of vegetables," Tsang says. "Like farming, filmmaking is very weather-dependent. There are lots of ups and downs, and I spend a lot of time waiting for my crop to grow."

You can contact the writer atsundayed@chinadaily.com.cn.