Born to Fly: Closing Night at Third Culture Film Festival HK Showcase
There are films that entertain, and then there are films that feel like they were made for the people who carry more than one home inside them.
This Sunday evening, 30 August 2026, the Third Culture Film Festival brings its HK Showcase to a close at Soho House Hong Kong with exactly that kind of film: Born to Fly, directed by Ali Khajeian.
The documentary follows Hong Kong-raised ultra-runner Rahul Sharma as he becomes the fastest person to run the entire length of Sri Lanka — 566 kilometres from Point Pedro to Dondra Head — in 6 days, 13 hours and 22 minutes. He did it for the Children’s Cancer Institute Australia, raising more than AU$27,000. The title itself comes from a quiet moment of exhaustion on the final day, when his father told him, “Son, tomorrow you will fly.” A friend later sealed it: “You’re born to fly.”
Rahul grew up in Hong Kong — Quarry Bay School, South Island School, Hong Kong under-19 cricket — before moving to Melbourne. The city’s relentless pace, he has said, forges something in you. His father’s words still echo: if you can’t make it in Hong Kong, you won’t make it anywhere. That tension between roots and reinvention, between the weight of expectation and the freedom to keep moving, sits at the heart of both the film and the festival that is screening it.
Third Culture Film Festival was conceived in Hong Kong a decade ago by founder Harry Oram. The idea of “third culture” — the shared space that emerges when people shaped by different cultural worlds meet and create something new — has always felt native to this city. The 28–30 August showcase at Soho House is a private, invitation-only return to that origin, bringing international and Hong Kong-connected cinema into one intimate room.
I have the privilege of moderating the post-screening Q&A with director Ali Khajeian and Rahul Sharma himself. We will talk about the physical and emotional cost of the run, the decision to turn private pain into public purpose, the friendship that held the crew together, and what it means to dream like a child when the body is already breaking.
Sunday 30 August 2026
7:00 – 9:00 PM (+ Q&A)
Screening Room, 25/F, Soho House Hong Kong
Private invitation-only.
Born to Fly is not simply a sports documentary. It is a story about carrying Hong Kong with you when you leave, about fathers and sons, about choosing a cause larger than personal glory, and about the moment when pain becomes flight.
If you have ever felt that you belong to more than one place at once, this is a film that understands you.
See you in the dark.
Andrew Chan
Film Critic | Film Critics Circle of Australia
Neo Film