BEIJING QUEER FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES CANCELLATION

Organisers of the Beijing Queer film festival announced on Thursday that the event would not go ahead. The festival, also called Love Queer Film Week, was due to begin on Friday in Beijing. “We regret to inform you that the Love Queer Film Week … has been cancelled,” the organisers said on Instagram. Police allegedly made repeated phone calls to people involved with the festival in the weeks before its scheduled opening. The organisers’ statement did not give a reason for the cancellation.

Peking University students founded the festival in 2001. It became a public forum in mainland China for films and discussions about LGBTQ+ issues. China decriminalised homosexuality in 1997, but does not recognise same-sex marriage. Chinese authorities have censored media featuring same-sex themes and removed dating apps, while the advocacy group Beijing LGBT closed in 2023. In June, the French embassy in Beijing cancelled planned Pride Month film screenings following alleged police harassment.

Maya Wang, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said authorities had increased pressure on civil society, LGBT communities and independent film-makers. “The authorities have put more pressure on what little is left of China’s civil society, as well as the LGBT communities and independent film-makers,” she said. Authorities closed the Beijing Independent film festival in 2014 after detaining its founders and cutting electricity to its venue. An independent Chinese film festival planned for New York was also cancelled last year following alleged harassment by Chinese authorities. The organisers of Love Queer Film Week apologised to people who had planned to attend.