EXCLUSIVE: Central City Media has acquired all UK and Ireland distribution rights to Tracy Choi’s Girlfriends, in a deal struck during the Cannes market with Hong Kong’s Playhouse Limited.
The LGBTQ+ love story will receive a theatrical release through CCM on June 19.
The drama centres on Lok, a 34-year-old filmmaker from Macao who has directed her first feature but is at a crossroads in her life. Her next project has stalled and her girlfriend, Bei, wants them to settle down.
Grappling with the pressure, Lok revisits different moments and identities from her past: as “Choi”, studying in Taiwan at 22; and “Yan”, growing up in Macao aged 17 and coping with her first love.
The cast is led by Fish Liew, Jennifer Yu, Eliz Lao and Ning Han, with Lok’s younger identities played by Elizabeth Tang and rising star Natalie Hsu.
The Hong Kong-Taiwan-Macao co-production received its world premiere at Busan in September 2025 before going on to play Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, where Tang was nominated for best supporting actress. She went on to win best new performer at the Hong Kong Film Awards in April.
“It’s exciting to bring Girlfriends to the UK - it’s not often we get to see East Asian queer love on the big screen with this kind of tenderness,” said Sophie Wong, managing director of Central City Media.
Producers are Taiwan’s Estela Valdivieso Chen for Serendipity Films and Jacqueline Liu of Hong Kong’s Playhouse Limited. Both companies handle worldwide sales, excluding Asia which is repped by Golden Scene.
It marks the fourth feature of Macao filmmaker Choi and reunites the director with actresses Liew and Yu, who starred in her 2016 feature debut Sisterhood, as well as leading Hong Kong-based producer Liu.
Central City Media previously released Liu-produced features Band Four and The Way We Talk.
The UK distribution company recently released Patrick Leung Pak-Kin’s award-winning drama Ciao UFO and Hong Kong animation Another World, which proved a local box office hit and won best animated feature at the Golden Horse Awards.
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