The screening series “Comrades I Love You” will soon comes to the second half. Basically, I’ll be there every screening Dec 14-16th.
Thursday 14.12.2023 20:00
Some Like it Sweet and Hot - Films by habakari-cinema+records
すべすべの秘法 (The Secret to My Silky Skin)
Imaizumi Koichi, Japan 2014, 81 min. Japanese with English subtitles, HD
犬漏 (Solid)
Iwasa Hiroki, Japan 2020, 14 min. Japanese with English subtitles, HD
The screening is followed by a talk with Imaizumi Koichi and Iwasa Hiroki
habakari-cinema+records was founded in 1999 by two gay filmmaker-artists in Japan. Their works often tell explicit stories of gay love and sex. The Secret to My Silky Skin, an adaption of manga, features Ryota, a boy who lives with his parents in Kyoto and when visiting Tokyo for a business trip stays with his fuck buddy, Issei. The film traces the “extremely mundane” daily life of gay men in Japan including sex which unfolds on screen. Solid tells the story of two men; during their first meeting, their sex is constantly interrupted by an earthquake. Romance fills the air in both films as does an electric sexual tension. (PF)
Imaizumi Koichi has acted in over 100 films since 1990, primarily "pink" (Japanese romantic porn) films. In 1999, he co-founded 'habakari-cinema+records' with Iwasa Hiroki and started independent filmmaking.
Iwasa Hiroki has been making music since 1995. He also directs films and writes reviews on music and film.
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Friday 15.12.2023 20:00
梁山伯與祝英台 (The Love Eterne)
Li Han-Hsiang, Hong Kong 1963, 122 min. Mandarin with English subtitles, DCP
The screening is followed by a workshop by Xinghan Ren
In this sumptuous musical adaptation of one of China’s most famous folk tales, Betty Loh Ti plays a fourth–century maiden (Chu Ying-Tai) who yearns for an education. Disguised as a boy in order to attend school, she meets the dashing Liang Shan-Po, with whom she falls passionately in love. Six decades after its release, this retrospective screening offers audiences the chance to reconsider how the gender-bending role-play traditional in Huangmei opera also features in this classic film. The decision to cast a female actress (Ivy Ling Po) in the male role further complicates the onscreen sexual dynamics. Desire is presented as both fluid and uninhibited by gender in this playful, hugely popular and award-winning musical that made Ling Po an icon. (QE)
Xinghan Ren, born and raised in Xi'an, China, is a percussionist. He moved to Hamburg in 2017 and studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. Now he is a percussion teacher at this school.
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Saturday 16.12.2023 15:00
誌同志 (Queer China, “Comrade” China)
Cui Zi’en, China 2008, 120 min. Mandarin with English subtitles, HD
Directed by Cui Zi’en, China's pioneering queer filmmaker, this documentary features interviews with over 30 people including activists, scholars, artists, and filmmakers who have contributed to and experienced changes related to Tongzhi / 同志 (homosexuality/LGBT) over the past 30 years, up until 2008. Archival footage, including the first-ever appearance of gays and lesbians on state television and documention of challenging moments, such as the shutdown of the second edition of the Beijing Queer Film Festival, result in a film that preserves a significant part of queer history; by investigating the present and exploring the future, Cui Zi'en created a historical milestone that is still relevant today. (PF)
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Saturday 16.12.2023 17:15
Hello Tongzhi! Queer Dongxi: Panel discussion about queer diaspora comrades
The screening is followed by a talk with Hongwei Bao (online) and Yi Wang
Tongzhi (同志), which originally means “comrades", is now used in Chinese speaking communities worldwide for homosexuality, gayness, queerness. Dongxi (东西) is a double entendre that can mean both “East and West” and “something”. In this panel, Tongzhi and Dongxi becomes points of departure for scholar Hongwei Bao and curator Yi Wang to talk about their experiences involving/observing LGBTQ+ rights and art in China and Taiwan. During this session, we will also discuss how to build and maintain modes of solidarity that aim to promote queer East Asian film, counter colonialism and Western-centric narratives. (PF)
Hongwei Bao (he/him) is an Associate Professor in Media Studies at the University of Nottingham.
Yi Wang is the founder, director and programmer of Queer East, a London-based festival that showcases LGBTQ+ cinema, live arts, and moving image work from East and Southeast Asia and diasporas.
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Saturday 16.12.2023 20:00
UKI
Shu Lea Cheang, Germany, USA 2023, 80 min. English with German subtitles, DCP
THIS IS NOT SEX. THIS IS LOVE: Shu Lea Cheang earned a reputation as being a badass cyberpunk filmmaker with her 2000 cult smash I.K.U. in which sensual cyborgs fuck for information and pleasure. 23 years later, UKI takes us on a journey with replicant REIKO, defunct and dumped on vast tech dump Etrashville, as they try to pull themselves back together with the help of Etrashville's transgenic inhabitants. Parallel to REIKO’s trajectory is that of an infected city where we are made aware of reckless scheming as part of a biotech enterprise known as GENOM Co. Through her own brand of alt-reality cinema, Cheang has created a genre of her own: Scifi New Queer Cinema. (SLC/JB)
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Saturday 16.12.2023 21:30
Karaoke Relay
FREE Entry
This is karaoke, this is love! In this Karaoke session, everybody will become the host. Via a group chat that anyone can join by scanning a QR code, you will be able to share the link to the song you want to sing. The person who sings first will call out the name for the next song. With this method, we will create a Karaoke relay, passing the microphone like handing off a baton. The primary language will be English, everyone is welcome. A community-based, unnamed Chinese Karaoke group will emerge. Attention: there might be multiple melancholic Chinese pop songs! Let's sing to turn the cinema into a field of joy (and perhaps some sadness), to the gray December sky of Berlin, for the upcoming Christmas, Silvester, and Lunar New Year. Let’s sing away the bad luck of 2023 and welcome in 2024!
COMRADES I LOVE YOU
Curated by Popo Fan and Sarnt Utamachote in collaboration with Yi Wang and Queer East Film Festival UK
Focusing on the aspects of sound, embodiment and musicality in queer Asian cinema, this series showcases historical and contemporary films in transnational dialogue with each other. The program borrows its title from “Comrades: Almost A Love Story” (1998, Peter Chan), a classic Chinese film which became extremely popular in Asia and especially in countries with large Chinese diasporic communities. Its soundtrack (Teresa Teng) and the intertwined motifs of labor migration, destiny, and desire was a format that influenced many filmmakers that followed. “Comrades I Love You” thematizes how the practices of voicing/singing or embodying certain roles (“drag”) has the power to create a form of cinematic comradeship and to subvert conventional family structures and desires. Each of the films in this series have been part of screenings hosted by Queer East, a cross-disciplinary festival based in London that showcases boundary-pushing LGBTQ+ cinema, live arts, and moving image work from East and Southeast Asia and its diasporic communities, exploring notions of what it means to be queer and Asian today.
Yi Wang is the director and programmer of Queer East. Outside this role, Yi works as a creative producer for performing arts and cross-cultural events.
Sarnt Utamachote is a nonbinary filmmaker and curator based in Berlin. They are a co-founder of un.thai.tled, an artist collective from the German-Thai diaspora, through which they have organized un.thai.tled Film Festival at Sinema Transtopia since 2020.
Popo Fan is a Berlin-based Chinese diaspora filmmaker, curator and writer. His films include queer activism documentaries and scripted, sex-positive shorts. For more than a decade, he has been an organizer of Beijing Queer Film Festival.