China’s first gay-themed movie to open in cinemas

On December 31st last director Wang Chao ran a poster on the Weibo social network for his film Seek McCartney, China's first gay-themed commercial film, saying, "In the new year, if there is love, you can find it."

Now Seek McCartney, known in English as Looking for Rohmer, has passed China’s strict censorship codes and is about to open in cinemas, although its distributors are not taking any chances and trailers pointedly play down any homosexual references in the film, which is a romance about a secret relationship between a Chinese man and a French man.

Mr Wang said: “Passing censorship is a small step for the censors on the Film Board, while it’s a big step for film-makers.”

The one-minute trailer focuses on one man making a road trip across Tibet. Mr Wang and its producers have made no reference to its homosexual theme and avoid any comments on what impact it may have in China.

When the film debuted at the Cannes film festival in 2014, the film's themes were clearer but the film-makers have good reason to be careful.

Earlier this month, a popular same-sex drama series about four gay teenagers, Addiction, was taken off line as part of a stepped up moral crusade under President Xi Jinping.

Decriminalisation

Homosexuality was taken off an official list of mental illnesses in 2001, after it was decriminalised in 1997, and the big cities have thriving LGBT communities but homosexuals face significant discrimination in different parts of the country.

The movie is a co-production between China and France, which means it does not have to qualify as one of the 34 foreign films permitted in China every year under the country's quota system.

But it still had to go through the tough censorship mill.

The film was originally supposed to screen late last year but it did not happen.

This is not unusual in China, where the film market is booming and movies, especially non-blockbuster mass-market films, have to compete for screen space.

A problem for all film-makers in China, and not just those dealing with LGBT themes or politically sensitive topics, is that censorship rules are unpredictable.

In February last year, Coming Home, a short film urging parents in China to accept their gay children, went viral and notched up more than 100 million online views.

Fang Popo, an LGBT activist, saw his documentary Mama Rainbow about young gay Chinese and their parents taken down by the state administration of radio, film and television.