China Seminar: The Chinese Closet: Being Gay in China

Speaker:  Fan Popo (independent filmmaker and writer)

Expertise:  Gay filmmaker, writer, activist

Date and time:  Tuesday, 10 April 2012, 15.15 - 17.00h 

Venue:Leiden Univeristy,  Lipsius building, room 208 

Language:  English and Chinese

Abstract:

Fan Popo is in the Netherlands to present his documentary Be a Woman at the CinemAsia Festival in Amsterdam (screening on April 6, cf. www.cinemasia.nl). In Leiden, he will give an overview of the LGBT situation in China: is it hard for young people to come out in China? What types of difficulties are they confronted with? What kind of role can filmmakers play in (gay) community building?

Speaker's resume:

Fan Popo 范坡坡 was born in 1985, graduated from Beijing Film Academy.

Published Happy Together: Complete Record of a Hundred Queer Films 春光乍泄:百部同志电影全记录 (Beifang Wenyi Press, 2007). 

Third Prize in the LGBT Research Paper Prize, Chi-Heng Foundation; 

Prism Prize of 22nd Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

Participation in directing China Queer Film Festival Tour in over twenty major cities in China since 2008. International exchange in Taipei, Copenhagen, Los Angeles etc.

List of works (as director):

2008 The Good Days, 96 mins, the 5th China Documentary Film Festival;

From Tsinghua to Qinghai, 28 mins, the World Urban Forum IV;

Taipei: City of Rainbow, 10mins, the 1st China Queer Film Festival Tour.

2009 New Beijing, New Marriage, 18 mins, the 4th Beijing Queer Film Festival, the 29th 

Vancouver International Film Festival; 21st Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival; 3rd Asian Queer Film Festival (Tokyo).

2010 Chinese Closet, 88 mins, the 2nd China Queer Film Festival Tour; 2011 Asian Hotshot Festival (Berlin); 11 th Seoul Independent DOcumentary Film & Video Festival.

Paper House, 20 mins, 2010 Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival. 

2011 Be a Woman, Long Beach Q Film Festival, Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

List of works (as photographer):

Queer China, “Comrade” China, the 3rd Beijing Independent Film Festival, the 24th Torino GLBT Film Festival, the 29th Vancouver International Film Festival.