The ‘queer generation’:queer community documentary in contemporary China

ABSTRACT

In this article, I chart a brief history of the queer community documentary in the PRC since the 2000s by introducing its historical conditions of emergence and development. In doing so, I highlight the activist dimension of queer filmmaking and its transnational nature. I focus specifically on the aesthetics and politics, together with modes of production and circulation, of these queer community documentaries. I call the group of filmmakers working around the Beijing Queer Film Festival and the China Queer Film Festival Tour the ‘queer generation’. The ‘queer generation’ filmmakers use documentary films as a tool to engage in political and social activism. Their films and activist practices should be put in a transnational context and seen as part of the transnational screen activism and international queer movements. As these filmmakers documented queer community histories, they also ‘queered’ Chinese documentaries and Chinese film industries at large. Their works represent grassroots, community-based and activist-oriented political engagements in contemporary China; these works also point to the political potential of queerness and documentary films in the world today.

KEYWORDS:

• Queer
• documentary
• China
• the ‘queer generation’
• film festival
• queer activism

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the two guest editors of the journal, Dr Maria Elena Indelicato and Dr David H. Fleming, for encouraging me to contribute to this special issue and for providing insightful feedback for the article. An earlier version of this article was presented at the ‘Rethinking Film Genres: East Asian Cinema and Beyond’ Conference held at the University of Hull in 2017, and I wish to thank the conference organiser Dr Lin Feng, Professor Chris Berry and other participants of the conference for their useful feedback. Phil Cowley has proofread different versions of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes on contributors

Hongwei Bao

Hongwei Bao is an associate professor in media studies at the University of Nottingham, UK, where he also co-directs Centre for Contemporary East Asian Cultural Studies. His research primarily focuses on queer media and culture in contemporary China. He is the author of Queer Comrades: Gay Identity and Tongzhi Activism in Postsocialist China (NIAS Press, 2018).