Review | Palimpsest: The Story of a Name movie review – Mary Stephen’s riveting study of identity

Aided by extensive home-movie footage and intricately detailed journals compiled by her father, Henry Stephen, the filmmaker mounts an enthralling investigation that spans the globe, from Australia to Montreal and back to the place of her birth, Hong Kong.

As the film opens, Mary Stephen acknowledges that she was born the same year as the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, an event celebrated with much pomp, ceremony and bewilderment in the then-British colony.

Audiences are treated to numerous sequences depicting Hong Kong from a bygone era, from cricket pitches in Central to hillsides adorned with rickety slums. Stephen’s life was, from her earliest memories, perpetually intertwined with, and defined by, colonisation and immigration.