Banned director brings gay romance film to Hong Kong
(Hong Kong) A prominent mainland Chinese director banned by Beijing from making movies brought his new gay romance film to Hong Kong on Friday for what is likely the last of a handful of screenings on his home soil.
In 2006, China banned Lou Ye from shooting movies for five years …
Tags: Beijing, China, Chinese Director, Gay Film, Gay Romance, Handful, Home Soil, Hong Kong, Lou Ye, Romance FilmChinese gays step quietly toward progress
(Beijing) The first time director and movie buff Cui Zi’en tried to hold a gay and lesbian film festival in 2001, it was shut down by police before it even opened. When he tried to organize a gay cultural festival in 2005, five dozen police officers swarmed the venue, closing …
Tags: Beijing, Dozen Police Officers, First Time Director, Gays, Lesbian Film Festival, Movie Buff, ZiGay film festival keeps low profile Toronto Star
BEIJING–When China’s homosexual moviemakers decided to hold their fourth-ever film festival this year, they took pains to avoid confrontation with the cops.
They’d had confrontations before.
So this year, they didn’t issue any press releases. They picked a venue where they didn’t have to apply for a government permit. And they insisted on calling the event The Beijing Queer Film Festival.
“The translation of queer in Chinese is `ku er,’” explains film director Cui Zi’en. “In the Chinese language, it’s actually a less well-known word – a less provocative word than `gay.’”
The idea, Cui says, is not to wave flags in the authorities’ faces.
Yesterday, the five-day film festival opened in a village on the outskirts of Beijing without incident.
It’s no longer illegal to be gay in China: that ended in 1997.
In 2001, the Chinese Psychiatric Association delisted homosexuality as a disease. But gay books and films remained banned here in China and the gay community continues to test the limits.
Cui and other organizers hope this week’s festival goes smoothly – and doesn’t get busted. Gay film fests in the capital were shut down in 2001 and 2005, while a festival in 2007 squeaked by under the radar.
See Gay film festival keeps low profile Toronto Star
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Shanghai Journal Gay Festival in China Pushes Official Boundaries New York Times
SHANGHAI — It was shortly after the “hot body” contest and just before a painted procession of Chinese opera singers took the stage that the police threatened to shut down China’s first gay pride festival. The authorities had already forced the cancellation of a play, a film screening and a social mixer, so when an irritated plainclothes officer arrived at the Saturday afternoon gala and flashed his badge, organizers feared the worst.
After some fraught negotiations, Hannah Miller, an American teacher who helped put together the weeklong festival, agreed to limit the crowds, keep the noise down and, most important, “not let anything happen that might embarrass the government,” she explained after returning from the impromptu sidewalk meeting. “That was a close call,” she said.
Crisis averted, the party continued.
And so it went for Shanghai Pride week, a delicately orchestrated series of private events that revealed how far China’s gay community had come, and how much further it had to go. In the 12 years since homosexuality was decriminalized in China, there has been an unmistakable blossoming of gay life, even if largely underground. Most big cities have gay bars, and social networking sites ease the isolation of those living in China’s rural hinterland. Antigay violence is virtually unheard of.
But official tolerance has its limits. Gay publications and plays are banned, gay Web sites are occasionally blocked and those who try to advocate for greater legal protections for lesbians and gay men sometimes face harassment from the police. For years, movie buffs in Beijing have tried, and failed, to get permission for a gay film festival.
This month, public security officials forced Wan Yanhai, a prominent advocate on gay issues, including AIDS, to leave Beijing for a week because they feared he might cause trouble during the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
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China hushes up first gay pride week
Beijing - Organizers of China’s first gay pride week were struggling Thursday to find new venues for their events after police in Shanghai warned clubs and bars against joining the planned festival.
The crackdown came even as China’s state-run English-language daily was hailing the celebration as “a good showcase of the country’s social progress” and “an event of profound significance.”
Police and commercial bureau officials warned a local restaurant of “very severe” consequences if it screened films as part of the festival, says an organizer who asked not to be identified. A photo studio called off a theater performance after a similar visit.
Gay activists said the official interference illustrated official Chinese policy toward homosexual gatherings: low-key events in private spaces are tolerated; public activities are banned.
“If you attract a lot of attention and media reports, the government will intervene,” says Wan Yanhai, an AIDS activist in Beijing.
The two American women who organized Shanghai Pride week deliberately avoided scheduling any public events that would have required official permission, for fear of being banned. The festival of film, theater, literary readings, and panel discussions, however, has drawn considerable international media attention, even if the Chinese-language press in Shanghai has made no mention of the event. Most of the 500 or so people who have attended events so far have been foreigners.
There are thought to be around 35 million homosexuals in China, who face considerable discrimination in the workplace and elsewhere if they are courageous enough to come out. Homosexuality was a crime here until 1997, and classed as a mental disorder until 2001. Some government-funded medical institutes are still trying to find a “cure” for homosexuality.
Although gay websites, clubs, and tea rooms have sprung up in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, there is still a taboo on gay culture in Chinese cinema and television. At the same time, adds Mr. Wan, “the traditional Chinese concept of the family is very conservative, and families put heavy pressure on gays to get married.” China hushes up first gay pride week
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China Internet filter challenged in rights uproar
A Chinese lawyer has demanded a public hearing to reconsider a government demand that all new personal computers carry Internet filtering software, adding to uproar over a plan critics say is ineffective and intrusive.
Li Fangping, a Beijing human rights advocate who often embraces controversial causes, has asked the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to allow hearings on the “lawfulness and reasonableness” of the demand, which takes effect from July 1 and was publicized only this week.
“This administrative action lacks a legal basis,” Li wrote in a submission to the ministry that was sent to reporters by email on Thursday.
“Designating that the same software must be installed in all computers affects citizens’ rights to choose.”
Li’s demand, and denunciations of the plan from Chinese rights groups, have expanded a public battle over the “Green Dam” filtering software, despite a state media effort to promote the software as a welcome way to prevent children being exposed to pornography. See China Internet filter challenged in rights uproar
Washington Post
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How Beijing Butchered Sean Penn’s “Commie, Homo-Loving” Oscar Speech
In recent days, journalists around the globe have reported on the efforts of Asian governments to censor speech and images in support of gay rights from the broadcast of last Sunday’s Oscars. According to the AP, the Hong Kong-based, Murdoch-owned STAR network, reaching more than 300 million viewers in 53 countries, muted any mention of “gay” or “lesbian” during its tape-delayed, English-language re-broadcast of the Oscars. Sean Penn and Dustin Lance Black, who both won Oscars for their work on the film Milk, used their time at the podium to voice support for same-sex marriage and equal rights for gays and lesbians.
In mainland China, where the Academy awards was broadcast with Chinese subtitles on state-run China Central Television (CCTV), censors did not mute out material deemed sensitive, but rather, and even more shamefully, omitted or mistranslated all language and images dealing with homosexuality. According to a Monday post on the China-based blog Shanghaiist, the CCTV broadcast cut out two gay kisses shown during the broadcast and completely eliminated Dustin Lance Black’s acceptance speech after he won for best original screenplay.
Black, who is openly gay, invoked Harvey Milk in his speech and promised equal rights “very soon” to the nation’s gay youth. “If Harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago,” Black said, “I think he’d want me to say to all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told that they are less than by their churches or by the government or by their families that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value.” While Black’s speech was widely considered one of the more moving and memorable moments from this year’s Oscars, for viewers in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Taiwan and Thailand, the speech was heavily censored, while those in mainland China didn’t hear a word of it.
For anyone who missed it, here’s Dustin Lance Black’s speech: @ How Beijing Butchered Sean Penn’s “Commie, Homo-Loving” Oscar Speech
Huffington Post -
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Beijing’s ‘happy couples’ launch campaign for same-sex marriages
With her bouquet of roses and fluffy white dress, Han Xincheng looked the epitome of the glamorous modern Chinese bride. But, although her parents had been pressing her to marry, the photographs were not what they might have expected: she is gazing adoringly at another woman, surrounded by onlookers.
The series of “wedding pictures” staged by lesbians and gay men in the heart of Beijing might not raise eyebrows any longer in most western countries, but they are evidence that attitudes are finally changing in a country where gay sex was illegal until 1997 and homosexuality classified as a mental illness until four years later.
There is still no legal protection against discrimination in China and few role models: no mainstream figures are openly gay. Yet now parts of China’s gay population are calling for the right to wed - and meeting with some sympathy.
“Many reactions were quite positive and some people even came up to give us their blessing,” said Han, though she acknowledges that overall the public reaction was negative.
SeeBeijing’s ‘happy couples’ launch campaign for same-sex marriages
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Visits Curbed To Chinese AIDS activist
(Beijing) Chinese authorities have curbed visits to an imprisoned dissident who was awarded the European Parliament’s top human rights award, his wife said.
Zeng Jinyan said she was told of the restriction during a telephone call Thursday from the Beijing Municipal Prison, where her husband, Hu Jia, is being held on …
Tags: aids, Aids Activist, Beijing, Chinese Authorities, European Parliament, Hu Jia, Human Rights, Parliament, Restriction, Telephone Call
