Beijing Queer Film Festival Goes Guerilla

On Sunday 19 June 2011, the Beijing Queer Film Festival successfully closed its fifth edition after 5 days of guerilla-style screenings and talks around the city.

On Sunday 19 June 2011, the Beijing Queer Film Festival successfully closed its fifth edition after 5 days of guerilla-style screenings and talks around the city.

3 days prior to the start of the festival, Chinese authorities had told the organizers to cancel the festival, warning them that they would be watching the Dongjen Book Club where the festival was supposed to take place. The organizers refused to lay down however and hurried to find several alternative screening locations in bars and coffee-houses around Beijing. By implementing strict safety measures surrounding the publication of screening times and places, they managed to stay out of the hands of the authorities for the duration of the festival.

More than 500 people, including an impressive array of Chinese and foreign queer filmmakers, attended the festival which showed more than 30 queer-themed films and held numerous talks.

Despite and perhaps even thanks to the ban imposed by the authorities, the Beijing Queer Film Festival succeeded in what it set out to do: celebrate queer film and celebrate the necessity of showing queer films in a society where non-mainstream voices are stifled all too often.

During its 10-year-long existence, the Beijing Queer Film Festival (BJQFF, www.bjqff.com) had its fair share of official trouble.  Started in 2001 by a group of Peking University students, the festival has been organized every other year by a changing group of volunteers.  Its first 2 editions were all marked by official interruptions and bans, forcing the organizers to keep their festival underground and far away from official eyes.

The 3rd and 4th edition, held in 2007 and 2009, were more successful.  Held in Songzhuang village, an artist community just outside of Beijing, they both took place without overt harassment from police or national security.  It encouraged the organizers to think bigger as they prepared for a large scale 2011 edition.

In April 2011, they had to adjust their plans however.  The official cancellation of DOChina, an independent documentary film festival scheduled to take place in May, signaled that Songzhuang village wasn’t a safe haven anymore for non-mainstream art happenings.  As it soon turned out, other art locations around Beijing were also experiencing a severe climate of government control and censorship.

“Apart from Songzhuang, we also made screening agreements with several other locations.  One by one they told us however that hosting the Beijing Queer Film Festival was too risky.  They were afraid of being shut down by the authorities, and they told us that they didn’t want to work with us anymore.”, says Stijn Deklerck, member of the 2011 BJQFF Organization Committee.

The organizers finally decided to hold their festival at the Dongjen Book Club, an activity center in Beijing’s Xicheng District.  Worried by the overall climate of fear, they decided not to publicize the exact name and address of the new festival location.  Only the times of the screenings were publicized, and people could only obtain the screening address after booking a seat for the festival.

On Sunday 12 June, it became evident that the safety measures adopted were far from enough to keep the authorities at bay.  Representatives of the Beijing Xicheng District Public Security Bureau, Culture Bureau and Bureau of Industry and Trade turned up unannounced at the Dongjen Book Club and demanded a sit-down with the BJQFF organizers.  After a short talk, in which they vaguely cited a number of Chinese laws, they declared that the festival was illegal and that it had to be cancelled.  They announced that they would post police officers at the Dongjen Book Club during the festival, and they expressed that there would be harsh consequences if the organizers disobeyed their orders.

In an emergency meeting, the BJQFF Organization Committee unanimously decided to still hold the festival but at a different location.

“The BJQFF was started as a platform to question and challenge mainstream culture.  Since  mainstream in China is mainly constructed by the government, we all felt a duty to not let the BJQFF be silenced by government bureaus, but to challenge their decisions on which films are acceptable for screening.”, says Cui Zi’En, co-founder of the festival and member of the 2011 organization committee.

With only 3 days left till the festival opening, scheduled on 15 June, the organizers started to engage all kinds of bars and cafe’s around Beijing.  Uncertain if the authorities would find out about the new locations, they decided to avoid a concentration of activities at one single space.

Fan Popo, one of the organizers, describes the atmosphere preceding the opening: “We were alarmed by the fact that the officials found out about the Dongjen Book Club, because we never publicized that the festival would take place there.  What was even scarier, was that the authorities also knew about the previous talks we had with other screening locations.  So we decided we needed some new safety measures, and one of them was to keep switching locations during the 5 days of the festival.”

The organizers also decided to give the outward impression that the festival was indeed cancelled, informing all the people who had already booked seats that the festival wouldn’t take place.  Only invited guests, volunteers, personal friends and LGBT organizations were informed about the new schedule and locations.

Nervously starting on 15 June, the Beijing Queer Film Festival managed to hold 5 days of inspiring screenings and talks.  Though not all screenings originally scheduled could take place, more than 30 films were screened during the festival in 4 thematic programs: Filmmakers’ Profile, Overseas Nation, Queers from Diverse Cultures and National Panorama (including short, feature and documentary films).  A special Beijing Queer Film Festival Retrospective Program consisted of a documentary about the past decade of the BJQFF and a panel discussion focusing on the development and future of queer film festivals in Asia.  Apart from the opening- and closing night ceremonies, the festival also managed to bring together a party crowd on 3 different nights of the festival.
8 filmmakers from outside of mainland China personally shared their films and experiences at the festival, including famous queer cinema pioneer Barbara Hammer, Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival organizer Sridhar Rangayan, Taiwanese queer documentary maker Mickey Chen and Chinese-Canadian video artist Wayne Yung.  More than 15 Chinese queer filmmakers presented and discussed their work, with many of their films premiering at the festival.  In a festival first, 25 people coming from the less-developed parts of China obtained funding to attend the festival, giving them the occasion to watch queer- and LGBT-themed films, an unknown luxury in their respective hometowns.  Overall, more than 500 people attended the festival, and proudly celebrated queer film.

At the end of the festival, the organization committee looks back on a very successful 5th BJQFF edition.

“While it is unfortunate that we had to be guerilla-warriors once again in order to hold this festival, we feel empowered and invigorated by the reactions of the audience and the filmmakers, and we’re ready to continue with our goal of spreading queer films and queer culture in Chinese society.”, says Yang Yang, the chairwoman of this year’s Beijing Queer Film Festival.

She sums it all up in her written preface to the festival: “[…] our biggest enemy consists of a small number of authoritarian organizations that are using the powerful national propaganda machine to subtly construct mainstream ideology.  And our biggest worth, our ultimate goal as a queer film festival is to challenge and oppose this mainstream ideology. […] The revolution hasn’t succeeded yet.  Queers, keep up the good work!”

Media contact:  Yang Yang
Email:  yangyang@bjqff.com

Astraea Grantee Partner Premieres at Sundance

Astraea grantee partner PARIAH premieres today as a Sundance Film Festival official selection in the U.S. Dramatic Competition.  The film is a powerful example of the power of arts and culture to move hearts and make change by telling the untold story. It is a coming of age feature-length film that asks the critical question, “Who do you become when you can’t be yourself?” It chronicles the struggles of a young Black lesbian as she juggles ill-fitting identities in attempts to please family and friends.

PARIAH is one of few LGBTI projects that have garnered support and accolades from the film industry including the Tribeca Institute, IFP and Film Independent. The short version of the film toured festivals widely, winning 25 best short awards.

The struggles of LGBTI youth of color to juggle community and sexual/gender identity are largely unexamined in the mainstream. PARIAH brings these issues to light in its compelling story. The filmmakers write “We aspire to the idea of change, one popcorn bucket at a time.”

Astraea Believes Arts and Culture are Powerful Tools that Change Hearts and Minds.

Organizations the world over are using media for social change. Astraea funds film, theater and dance projects as well as organizations who have integrated arts and culture in their social change work.

  • Now in its fifth year, Queer Black Cinema in New York holds an annual film festival showcasing films about the Black LGBTQ experience from around the world.
  • Mujeres al Borde in Bogotá, Colombia presented their play To Be Different: a Right at 30 public high schools, reaching more than 5,000 students.
  • In China, China Queer Independent Film has reached more than 2,000 people across the country by showcasing some of the first Chinese-language LGBTI films.

To read more about Astraea grantee partners, visit our interactive grants map.

LGBT Organizing by Astraea Grantee Partners Across China Featured in China Daily

Astraea grantee partners across China had an exciting 2009, which was recently chronicled by the China Daily, the official English media outlet of Chinese government. Many events featured in the Daily’s timeline were organized by Astraea grantee-partners including Common Language, les+, Chinese Lala Alliance and China Queer Independent Films.

Among other triumphs, Astraea grantee partners broke new ground with the first public queer art exhibition in China that was attended by over 500 visitors on its opening day, and hosted the third Lala Camp that convened over 50 lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth organizers across the Chinese mainland, as well as Taiwan, Hong Kong and the US. Read more about Astraea grantees in China in eThreads.org

Year of Gay China

By Christine Laskowski for China Daily

As the year 2009 comes to a close, it does so having been a monumental year for China’s LGBT community. Beijing and numerous cities across China experienced the successful completion of 12 anniversaries and public events that expose LGBT culture and related issues like never before.

China’s LGBT community, which is an acronym that refers to lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people, has adapted the terms tongzhi to refer to gays, lala for lesbians, ku’er for queer – an umbrella term for those who do not identify as heterosexual with regard to sexuality, sexual anatomy or gender identity.

The community is young. Most are in their 20s and 30s, are educated, working professionals with experience abroad who are now highly active and public organizers, authors, editors, designers, film directors, curators, activists and artists.

One catalyst was the Olympic Games in 2008, a landmark event that many in the LGBT community have interpreted as a “coming out” event. LGBT websites have allowed for communities to build, to advertise events, and to allow contact and information to be exchanged between LGBT members from big cities and small towns in China with those from around the world.

As one of the organizers of China’s first gay pride events and editor for shanghaiist.com, Kenneth Tan, puts it: “Gay people, young and old, are now coming out en masse. These people are all what I call ‘first generation queers.'”

Policies, too, have been slowly changing. At a national level, 1997 saw the removal of sodomy from the country’s list of crimes; homosexuality was removed from the list of mental disorders in 2001; and since 2003 prominent sexologist and activist, Li Yinhe, has been proposing same-sex marriage legislation at the annual Two Sessions.

In China, where LGBT-themed films are prohibited and gay-themed exhibitions, novels and magazines are taboo, the success of many of these events have been years in the making. Organizers have gotten creative: they arrange other activities; they hold their film festivals and art exhibitions just outside major cities; they keep publicity to a minimum.

So with all this happening, what does the future hold for China’s LGBT community? Li Yinhe has revealed plans to propose another same-sex marriage bill in 2010. And in a nation without ratings, perhaps introducing them to TV shows and films, will help lift the ban on gay and lesbian characters on screen. Perhaps China will witness the coming-out of its first celebrity.

Yet among all involved to promote awareness and to end discrimination, there seems to be a consensus: they have come a long way, but there is still a long way to go.

Qin Zhongwei, Wang Chao and Yang Wanli contributed to the story

Visit China Daily for a timeline of the year’s events.

Read more about Astraea grantees in China in eThreads.org