Street smart

Drifting pivots on a group of homeless neighbors demanding compensation for their lost possessions after the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department swooped in and cleared the space of their possessions with no prior notice. Li had written about the incident at the time. The film takes care to make sure the audience identifies the plaintiffs in the case as street sleepers rather than homeless. They have a home: just not the kind respectable flat owners consider valid. Drifting is an appropriately discomfiting film; a fairly unflinching look at the people who get caught in the crossfire of so-called progress and development.

Li acknowledges the final script incorporated material from his news coverage, but some of the story's content was ultimately filtered through the passage of time. "When you're in university, when you're 19, 20, 21, you experience things at a different magnitude," he says. "Something that hits you hard then doesn't now. I'll admit I wasn't prepared for the drug scene. When I went back I wasn't a journalist, and I found everyone much more honest this time."

Balancing authenticity and "watchability" was a factor Li has to contend with, particularly in light of the drug use depicted in the film. That makes it a harder sell in much of Asia, but addiction, mental health issues and poverty don't make the claim at the heart of the story less legitimate.

"I have to be honest to the community and its reality," argues Li. It's a message too many are willing to overlook in favor of gentrification.