The cancellation of Beijing’s Love Queer Film Week leaves queer filmmakers and audiences without mainland China’s only film festival offering a public forum for films and discussions about LGBTQ+ issues.
Organisers said they cancelled the event after police pressure intensified through repeated phone calls in recent weeks.
Late on Thursday in Beijing, a day before the festival was due to begin on Friday, organisers posted the decision on Instagram. “We regret to inform you that the Love Queer Film Week has been cancelled. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience and disappointment that the cancellation of this event may cause to those who planned to participate or had been looking forward to the film week.”
Several international filmmakers whose work had been selected had already travelled to China to take part.
The festival began in 2001, founded by Peking University students, and developed into mainland China’s sole public platform for LGBTQ+ films and discussion. Its organisers received 200 volunteer applications last year, four times the number received in 2024.
Its cancellation follows the abandonment of Pride month screenings at the Institut Français in Beijing in June this year. Those films had LGBTQ+ themes, and the screenings were cancelled because of police harassment.
China decriminalised homosexuality in 1997, though it does not recognise same-sex marriage. Chinese authorities have reduced queer visibility in media by censoring material with same-sex themes, sidelining advocacy groups and removing dating apps.
Maya Wang, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said: “Beijing under Xi has been tightening social and ideological control, so any activities outside of those sanctioned by the party-state are subjected to intensifying scrutiny and official harassment”. She added: “A queer film festival basically faces all of these overlapping pressures”.
Film festivals have been among the institutions affected since Xi Jinping took office in 2012, with many forced to close. Beijing Independent film festival was shut down in 2014 after authorities detained its founders and cut the venue’s electricity supply. Last year, an independent Chinese film festival scheduled for New York was cancelled after harassment from Chinese authorities.
Beijing LGBT, an advocacy group that provided a safe space for Beijing’s queer community, closed in 2023 as the government intensified its clampdown. At least dozens of writers of danmei, or “boy love”, gay erotic fiction have been interrogated, arrested and charged with producing and selling obscene materials in China.
Hongwei Bao, a professor of Chinese studies at the University of St Andrews who focuses on LGBT issues, called the festival “a beacon for LGBT resilience” in China. “The shutdown of the Love Queer Cinema Week has a chilling affect on the Chinese queer community,” he said.
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