一朵奇葩的第六次盛开

这几年去国外参加活动的时候，每每跟人提起北京酷儿影展，对方通常都会瞪大眼睛看着我，你确定吗？那不可思议的表情告诉我，这个影展真是一朵奇葩。

譬如说，北京酷儿影展采取不选片的选片策略，针对中国大陆的作品但凡有拍出来跟我们报名的就放；我们不设奖项，在这个流行最爱分高下的年代也格格不入；我们主席轮值制，国内鲜有其它影展或者组织采取这种高风险作法；我们场地不固定：发轫于校园，尔后农村包围城市，现在又搞游击战；甚至名字也都随着政治策略改来改去……

“停停停，你确定你说的这是个影展吗？这是个什么玩意？”

对，这到底是个“什么玩意”还真难说。当下中国的人权状况，公众性别意识，独立电影创作语境，国际视角下的影像发声……种种因素影响着这个苦心经营了十三年的项目。

我个人从2005年作为观众参加过第二届影展，从第三届开始参与组织工作。八年时间也见证了影展的成长，乃至组委会成员的私人情感、家庭琐事，观众之间擦出的火花、搞出的破鞋，导演来北京遇上的趣事……

2011年6月，在第五届影展开幕式之前，我突然被通知将被任命为第六届影展轮值主席，在接受这个任务之前，我是纠结了好几秒钟的，然后还是答应了。由于我们两年办一次，这两年中每想到这个大难题我都寝食难安。从2012年8月份开始，政府开始剿杀几乎所有独立影展，幸存下来的放映机构也都遭受警察骚扰。与此同时，瞬息万变的同志运动，关于策略、性别视角的争吵一直没停。

这朵奇葩的第六次盛开，将是非常精彩的！节目安排方面，我们特别设置了“你看见了吗？”单元，放映影片，并进行研讨，让观众看到性少数里更为边缘的人群。另外还有一个关于电影审查制度的论坛，在国内的情势之下，希望借由影展平台发出酷儿的声音。此外，今年的“有朋自友邦来”特别邀请了关西酷儿影展的福永玄弥担任策划，让我们搁下小岛之争，认真看看电影。当然，不能错过的还有来自中、港、台、澳四地的华语作品，它们让我们从不同视角触觉华人世界。

上届影展开始，我们拿到一笔资助邀请全国各地二十几位观众一起观影。最终，在被打压情况之下，二十多位满怀热忱的外地朋友，跟随着我们迁移、讨论，回家乡之后又将种子撒播。很幸运，今年我们再次受到这笔捐助。这次报名的人数多达六十几位，其中不少人所在的县城、乡村我们都没有听说过，他们有的人报名表看得让人几度落泪。很期待他们的到来！

最后代表组委会感谢各位关注、支持这个影展的朋友。我个人也更感谢各位组委的协助，并且为这个富于坚持，勇于反思的团队感到骄傲。

范坡坡

第六届北京酷儿影展轮值主席

2013年6月2日

A Rare Flower Blooms for the Sixth Time

When going overseas to participate in foreign events, I often talk to people about the Beijing Queer Film Festival.  They usually respond by staring at me with big round eyes, which grow even rounder when I go into the details of our festival.  Their expressions of utter disbelief tell me that our festival really is a rare flower.

I tell them that the Beijing Queer Film Festival shows all the Mainland Chinese queer movies that are submitted to the festival without making a pre-selection; I tell them that, different from all the other festivals out there, we don’t hand out any awards; that we have a new festival director every year, something that is unseen in other Chinese festivals and organizations; I tell them that we started our festival on a university campus, moved it to the countryside bordering Beijing and subsequently went back to the city to organize it guerrilla-style; that we changed our names several times to stay under the authorities’ radar….

They usually interrupt me somewhere mid-sentence: “Wait a minute, what kind of event are you describing?  Are you sure it’s a film festival?”

In truth, it is pretty hard to determine what kind of an event the Beijing Queer Film Festival actually is.  It took on its own form during its 13 years of its existence.  It was  coloured by the blood, sweat and tears of the many volunteers who worked on it, and was influenced by a great number of factors, including China’s varying human rights situation, society’s slow-waxing gender consciousness, the narrow space for independent film production in China, and the growing international attention towards Chinese queer imagery.

I first attended the festival as an audience member in 2005, when it held its second edition, and started working on the festival committee right after.  During the following 8 years, I witnessed a lot of emotional committee meetings, I enjoyed the many sparks ignited by and between the audience members, and I learned a lot from the stories told by the directors invited to the festival.

In June 2011, right before the opening of the fifth festival edition, I was suddenly asked to become the director of the sixth festival edition and only had a couple of seconds to decide.  Luckily, it only took me that much time to formulate my answer, and I accepted wholeheartedly.  In the 2 years leading up to this sixth festival edition, I often had sleepless nights, thinking about how to put together all the pieces of the festival puzzle.  Since August 2012, the government has been systematically closing down all independent film festivals, and the screening organizations lucky enough to survive the onslaught have continuously been harassed by the police.  At the same time, the fast-changing Chinese LGBT movement hasn’t stopped debating the gender- and sexuality-perspectives it needs to adopt and the tactics it needs to use in order to achieve progress.

Yet in the end, I can only be very happy and proud about the sixth bloom of our rare flower.  We’ve prepared a brilliant line-up this year, containing an exciting range of films and talks.  The program “Did you see me?” focuses its talks and films on minority communities within the LGBT community, generating attention for those groups whose voices are seldom heard.  The panel session “Film Censorship in China” adds a queer voice to the debates that are currently raging about the censorship system in China.  This year’s “Queers from Diverse Cultures” program is curated by our special guest Fukunaga Genya from the Kansai Queer Film Festival (Japan), who brings a selection of queer films that give us a whole new look at our Japanese neighbours.  And of course, we have a broad selection of films from Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao, showcasing an engaging state-of-the-art on contemporary Chinese queer film.

During our last festival edition, we created a scholarship program, inviting 25 people from all over China to participate as an audience member in the festival.  This enthusiast group of scholarship recipients stuck with us through all the difficulties we experienced, eagerly participating in all of our screenings and discussions, and spreading out their new-learned knowledge to their local communities.  We’re very happy to continue the scholarship program this year.  We received more than 60 scholarship applications, with many applicants coming from villages we never even heard about and with stories that moved us to the core.  To all the new scholarship recipients: we are thrilled that you can be here with us!

Finally, I represent the Beijing Queer Film Festival Organizing Committee in thanking all of you for your continued attention and support.  I personally also wish to thank all my fellow members of the Organizing Committee.  I’m truly proud of our team, its persistence, and its continued and courageous introspection.

Fan Popo

Director of the Sixth Beijing Queer Film Festival

2 June 2013