“The form of love is just like the way we use our hands: most people prefer their right hands － as men loves women ; but some of them were born left-handers, just like a man falls in love with another man and two women are in love.”
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Doctor Li Yinhe, sociologist

　　On December 14 th , 2001, the 1 st Beijing Gay & Lesbian Film Festival was held in Peking University Library.

　　LOVE － Oration to the 1 st Beijing Gay & Lesbian Film Festival

　　This is the first great celebration in the history of China 's gay & lesbian films. All Chinese gay & lesbian fiction films, which were independently produced, are included in this film festival, namely: <East Palace West Palace> （ 1996), <Nan Nan Nu Nu> (1999), <Fish and Elephant> (2000), <Lan Yu> (2001) and <Old Testament> (2001).

　　< East Palace West Palace > was written by Wang Xiaobo and directed by Zhang Yuan, with Si Han and Hu Jun acting in the leading roles. This film breaks the priggish division of the two genders, directly faces the freedom of sexual orientation, and reflects on the difficulty to distinguish sexual genders from our natural environment. The character of Xiao Shi in the film could be called an heterosexual, and A-Lan -- a gay man-- represents a strong challenge to him. A wonderful scene is when Xiao shi, as a policeman, is deeply attracted by the man he arrested and starts to chase him around involuntarily. < East Palace West Palace > overthrows the traditional central conception of power/male/heterosexual, strikes down the so-called classical love model and then normalizes the discriminated one: love between the same sex gender.

　　Quite different from the eulogizing tone of <East Palace West Palace>, <Nan Nan Nu Nu> and <Fish and Elephant> were produced in 1999 and 2000 respectively 。 Written by Cui Zien and directed by Liu Bingjian, the film <Nan Nan Nu Nu> tells a story of Xiao Bo, a boy who has no sense of sex gender. The whole story goes without any twists and turns, and all the actors acted the way they were themselves. As a result, the film comes out as a replay of daily life. With an unromantic rythm, the film lets go of all the fussy and stagy possibilities. Homosexual, bisexual, uncertain sexual orientation, these all seem so common in the film. None are monsters, there only is a monstrous vision. But through this film, the old and morbid vision gets purified.

　　<Fish and Elephant>, written and directed by Li Yu, narrates the complex love among three women, without romance or exaggeration and -- by its succinct composition – brings out a sort of purity. In the film, Pan Yi and Stone get to know each other and fall in love in such a natural way it seems they were not acting. The director Li Yu put the dramatic plot at the edge of the main story, and used some traditional Hollywood movie elements tightly built behind the love among women.

　　<The Old Testament>, written and directed by Cui Zien, by using a hand photograph style and unfettered queer estate, goes deep into both homosexually emotion and gender order, carry out a new road of films. <The Old Testament> includes three narrative paragraphs: poems 1981, apothegms 1991 and songs 2001. To reach the climax, an a capella chorus sings every narrative paragraph, namely “ Xiaobo get married”, then “Xiaohao loses his job” and finally “Xiaobo sells himself” Largely related to punishment and death, the film quotes the relationship of God and human beings in the era of the old testament. However this is not a tragedy and not a pessimist look on the world either. The New Testament is still ahead and the era of The New Testament is to come.

　　The film <Lan Yu>, adapted from the e-novel <Beijing Stories> was screened at the French Cannes Film Festival of this year, and also received four honorable awards as well as the audience award at the last Taiwan Golden Horse Awards ceremony. This film's gut frame will be familiar to regular readers of e-novels. What the audience is expecting here is the connection between the words of Lan Yu with the images of Lan Yu. The main originality of this film is that is was written by an overseas Chinese lady, filmed by a director from Hong Kong and acted by mainland Chinese actors. The production team had then to cooperate with film crews from both Mainland China and Hong Kong . Also, it is so far the highest investment ever made on the mainland to produce a gay feature film.

　　This is the first time all the films mentioned above will be shown in mainland China .

　　I believe that for a film event like this one, if there was a first time, there will be a next time.

director ZhangYuan
director ZhangYuan
director ZhangYuan
Members of the Peking University Film 　　　　　　　Association	< The Old Testament>