从影展组织的层面来说，爱酷绝对是放到任何地方都难以成立的形态，正是在这一语境下，它才得以成立。今年我们能明显感觉到，未来仿佛蒙上了一层细灰，但是毋庸置疑的是，我们所做的每一步，都是一个微小的社会行动，它就这么不断更新、演化，随着不可预知的一切而前进，弥足珍贵。 

所幸今年影片容量依旧超越以往，奔至97部的高峰——在那些依然是崭新的、描写着我们的生存状况的影片之外，还能看到历久弥新的档案影像（非-“老电影”）重新跃入行动的前列；以及由特约策展人菅野优香带来的，如幽灵列车一般在历史中蜿蜒的景观展演。如此种种，有如我们的众生相。

胡启鸿 Larry Hu

2025年爱酷电影周轮值主席

Director on Duty, LOVE QUEER CINEMA WEEK 2025

From the perspective of film festival organizing, BJQFF is a form that could hardly exist anywhere else. Yet it is exactly in this context that it becomes possible. This year, we can keenly sense a fine layer of dust settling upon the future, yet what remains undeniable is that every step we take is a small act of social engagement. It keeps renewing, changing, and moving forward with all that is uncertain — and that makes it all the more precious.

Luckily, the number of films this year has once again surpassed before, reaching a peak of 97. Among them are not only new titles that continue to describe our human conditions, but also archival images — not “old films,” but living materials that return to the front line of action. And from our guest curator Yuka Kanno, there comes a landscape performance that moves through history like a ghost train. All these together form a portrait of who we are, a queerpanorama.

很高兴第18届北京酷儿影展又迎来了开幕。可能一些影展老朋友会比较有印象，前两年我以秘书的身份参与影展，而今年的角色转变成了今年爱酷电影周的轮值主席。这一角色转变意味我们影展一直以去中心化的方式，鼓励和包容不同资历的成员承担起这一责任，让影展每一年都能在全新的视野下开启新的策划。

这一年，我的生活里经历了一系列变动，不断在维持基本生存和公益性质的影展工作之间挣扎。如果说之前更多地从经济和紧缩的社会空间上感受到公益机构运转的困境，那么今年则在平衡个人生存和公益参与的过程中更多地体验到了更具体的公益参与者个体的困境，而个体困境又是整个公益参与大环境的缩影。比起无数前辈们为争取权益而将自己置身风险之中的困境，普通公益参与者所经历的这些琐碎却具体的现实困境或许是更少被看见和被提及的。

为什么这明明是这么艰难的一件事，让我们坚持做到了第18届？也许可以从今年我们收到的影片数量来看出来，即使到了今天这样在中国大陆拍酷儿题材的电影基本上可以被断定为无论从资金投入、精力投入还是表达可见性上全面赔本的环境下，华语酷儿电影数量竟有了一个轻微的回升，我们可以看到今天依然有那么多想要通过影像在性别议题上作出表达的人们，而到影展成立的第24年了，在大陆内能为酷儿表达提供的空间依然如此屈指可数。

正如我刚加入影展的2021年时说过的，翻开任意一本被官方认可的中国电影史，酷儿电影都是缺失的。但只要来到北京酷儿影展，翻开现场的每一本手册，每一年的影展手册，上面都是我们正在发生的、活着的酷儿电影史。我们不愿意看到这些影像记忆断代的一天，想让它们都能找到观众，从四处流散到有机会凝聚在一起，积蓄出推进社会更平等包容、更自由的力量。

而随着这四年来的参与，见证影展的坚持举办和它吸引了越来越多知道了我们存在的观众，我看到了影展除了酷儿电影之外更深层的意义。每年的这个时候，我们有了一个“节日”般的契机重聚在一起，互相鼓励和支持。北京酷儿影展或许对于每一位组委和每一位观众来说都有着不一样的独特意义，但对于我而言可能最有信念感的时刻还是来自每一年大家对新一届影展开幕的期待。正如2023年影展结束后一位观众朋友特地走过来和我说：“每年只要来到这里，我就感觉自己一下子变得完整了。”这句话或许听上去很简单，但我觉得这就是我们影展存在的最重要的意义：我们要在真正成为我们自己的时候，才是完整的。长期以来，我们都生活在被审查中被迫隐藏自身，但在这里，至少在这一刻，我们得以自由地展现自己最真实的存在，并获得力量。影展成为了一个在别处难以找到的暂时避难所——一个短暂但真实存在的乌托邦。

也正因此，不管当下和未来如何艰难，我们始终怀抱希望：终有一日，这个乌托邦不再只是一个短暂的幻影，而能成为我们共同生活的现实日常——那是我们持续抵抗不平等、努力追寻的权利与未来。

赵知行 Irene Zhao

2025年爱酷电影周轮值主席

Director on Duty, LOVE QUEER CINEMA WEEK 2025

It’s cheerful that the Beijing Queer Film Festival as it enters its 18th edition. Perhaps some old friends of the festival may remember that I worked for the film festival as a secretary in the past three years, but this year my role has shifted to the director on duty for this year’s Love Queer Cinema Week. This transition reflects our festival’s long-standing commitment to a decentralized approach—one that encourages and embraces members of different backgrounds and experience to take on this responsibility, allowing each edition to begin anew with fresh perspectives and visions.

This year, my life has undergone a series of changes. I’ve been struggling to maintain a balance between survival and my work with this nonprofit festival. In the past, I often felt the difficulties of running a public-interest organization from an economic and social standpoint—tight budgets and shrinking spaces for expression. But this year, I came to understand, more intimately, the struggles faced by individuals in nonprofit work—how personal survival often collides with the will to contribute. These individual hardships are, in fact, a microcosm of the broader environment in which public-interest work struggles to exist. Compared to the visible and often heroic risks undertaken by activists and pioneers before us, these small but concrete, day-to-day struggles of ordinary participants are less often seen or spoken of—but they are equally real.

Why, then, do we keep going, even though it’s so hard? How have we reached our 18th edition? Perhaps the answer can be glimpsed in the number of films we received this year. Even now—when making queer-themed films in mainland China almost guarantees loss in every sense, be it funding, hardwork, or visibility—the number of Chinese-language queer films has seen a slight rebound. It shows that there are still so many people who wish to express themselves through cinema, who continue to explore gender and identity despite all odds. And yet, in the 24 years since the festival’s founding, the spaces in mainland China where queer voices can be seen and heard remain painfully few.

As I said when I first joined the festival in 2021, if you open any officially recognized history of Chinese cinema, queer films are absent. But here, at the Beijing Queer Film Festival, you can open any catalogue from any year, and what you find is a living, unfolding queer film history. We do not want to see a day when these cinematic memories are lost or erased. We want them to find their audiences—to come together from all corners, and to gather strength toward a more equal, inclusive, and free society.

Through these four years of involvement, witnessing the festival’s persistence and the growing number of people who come to know about us, I’ve come to see that the festival’s significance extends far beyond the films themselves. Every year around this time, we are given a reason—a kind of “festival”—to gather, to encourage, and to give each other support. The Beijing Queer Film Festival may mean something different to every committee member and every audience, but for me, the moment that moves me the most is always when people begin looking forward to a new edition. After the festival in 2023, an audience came up to me and said, “Every time I come here, I feel whole again.” That simple sentence captures the very core of why this festival matters: we are only truly whole when we can be our true selves. For so long, we’ve lived under censorship that forces us to hide. But here—at least in this moment—we can freely be who we are, and find strength in doing so. The festival becomes a temporary sanctuary, a space that’s hard to find elsewhere—a fleeting yet real utopia.

And precisely because of that, no matter how difficult the present or the future may be, we hold onto hope: one day, this utopia will no longer be a mere dream, but a part of our shared daily life—a life where we continue to resist inequality and pursue our rights and futures.