For more than a decade, the Beijing Queer Film Festival (北京酷兒影展) has been playing cat-and-mouse with the Chinese authorities. The event is a constant target of the government’s censors, who prohibit the depiction of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender lives in films and TV shows. Screenings are often forced to cancel, and mainstream venues are out of the question. Yet, the film festival manages to survive, offering a rare platform for LGBT filmmakers and the communities who remain largely invisible in the state-controlled media.
Yang Yang (楊洋), a co-founder of the Chinese queer festival, was in Taipei last month to present Our Story: The Beijing Queer Film Festival’s 10 Years of Guerrilla Warfare (我們的故事：北京酷兒影展十年游擊戰) at the Women Make Waves Film Festival (女性影展). The 2011 documentary, directed by Yang, gives an insider’s look at the struggles of the organizers as well as their resourcefulness and resilience.
A draft law passed in September, however, might signal new obstacles ahead as it gives the authorities the legal right to shut down independent film festivals, following the widespread government crackdown on freedom of speech in recent years.
Photo courtesy of Women Make Waves Film Festival
“We will test the limits and see how far they will go [with the new law]. We make one move; they strike, and we will just retreat and find a different way. It has always been like this,” Yang says.
GOVERNMENT CENSORSHIP
The Beijing Queer Film Festival was established by a group of friends, including Yang and gay filmmaker Cui Zien (崔子恩), at Peking University in 2001, and has since become the oldest independent film festival in China. Being independent of the government’s censorship by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (國家廣播電影電視總局), the festival, like many other similar events across the country, often falls victim to government repression, which has significantly increased since Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) took office in 2012. Screenings are canceled; venues are shut down, forcing participants to move to less conspicuous places like cafes and private homes, and rely on publicity by word of mouth.
Photo courtesy of Women Make Waves Film Festival
And though the censors recently allowed the commercial release of LGBT-themed Seek McCartney (尋找羅麥), a Chinese-French production, without demanding any cuts, Yang says that censorship remains strong, and certainly bears no direct relation to independent film showcases.
“Film festivals... are a civil assembly, and that is what the authorities are afraid of,” the 33-year-old filmmaker and curator says.
“The government doesn’t treat film festivals as a cultural activity. It regards them as a social and political matter… For now, it remains rather hopeless to hold independent film festivals [in China],” she adds.
Another law makes illegal any international film festival that contains activities deemed to damage “national interest and social stability.”
“The authorities used to interfere and find administrative flaws to shut us down. Now what we do is punishable by law,” Yang says.
ALTERNATIVES
For now, the small yet thriving community of LGBT filmmakers disseminate their work through less regulated venues, such as video streaming Web sites.
“The authorities control Web sites, but there are many loopholes. You can find a large number of films without screening permits available on the sites, including the works of Cui,” Yang says.
The LGBT films in China are mostly short or documentary works since the subject matter doesn’t lend itself to investors and commercial releases. Filmmakers either fund their own films with their own money or seek funding from foreign embassies and foundations. The Dutch embassy, for example, has been the main sponsor for the Beijing Queer Film Festival, and many of the festival’s screenings and forums take place at the embassy, beyond the purview of the Chinese authorities.
“The repression of sexual and gender minorities is common in a patriarchal society. In China, there is totalitarian rule, which is actually a variation of patriarchy. The LGBT movement is, by definition, anti-patriarchy, and I think this is a deeper reason behind the Chinese government’s crackdown on queer events,” Yang says.
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