Scene from Popo Fan's Film Cut it Out; taken from Goethe Institute | © Popo Fan
On the day I arrived to Berlin one of my old-time friends from Berlin, Thomas Castaneda invited me to an event called "More Than A Midnight Rainbow x Chinese x Queer x Film". The event, curated by Popo Fan, and hosted by Bi'bak, was a series of short-films and documentaries about queer people, china, and how they embody their queer identities.
The festival took place over the course of April in four different editions: "F*ck the Censorship"; "Feminist in Town"; "I'm not in China But"; and "Trans*Form". All and all, the film series took an intersectional approach to the issue of censorship and queer identities. I had the opportunity to attend "Trans*Forms" on Apr 25th, and it was an amazing opportunity to reflect upon the power of art in creating personal and social change.
On the one hand, the process of making art that touches upon the complexities of queer identities makes the artists reflect upon the meaning of those identities; how they are constructed; embodied; and the space they use in the larger social structure of a community. This seems to me to be a very empowering kind of work, since the artist reproduces this phenomena that occurs in real life, to real people (and particularly in the cases of queer art, the artist themselves) in a way that becomes tangible, understandable, sometimes relatable, and most of the time timeless. I strongly admire artists who are able to stamp who they are into a piece of art, and share with the world.
On the other hand, "More Than A Midnight Rainbow" serves as an opportunity to bring about visibility to the Chinese queer minority who resides in Berlin and the realities that Chinese queer people living in China and the rest of the world. In addition, this is art that brings genuine representation to a group of people who in western media have been historically discriminated, exoticised, objectified, and invisibilized. Chinese queer people can find representation in this art, and non-chinese people can create empathy towards the struggles the Chinese queer experience in life.
In the image below you can find a screenshot of Bi'bak's website (and the link to access it) with the event description, written by Popo, and info about the curator.
