My small curation for Hamburg short film festival on “queer Asian” films.

(NO)WONDERLANDS

FRI, 03.06. – SAT, 04.06. 22:45 ZEISE 2 TICKETS

SAT, 04.06. 21:30 METROPOLIS TICKETS

More info: https://festival.shortfilm.com/en/programs/150

*artist Shu Lea Cheang and curator Saadat Munir attending Q&A after screening, extra panel tba!

Popo Fan

Love & Other Matters offers an insightful view of LGBTQ+ communities in Myanmar, contrasting urban and rural lives, and showcasing a diverse range of genders and sexualities. Even if we have to use terms such as "LGBT" or "Queer" here, it is always a question how we define and see? What’s “traditional” and what’s “modern” on these lands. Indigenous Hawaiian filmmaker and activist Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu reminds us to look into our own histories as an anti-colonial practice. Their animation Kapaemahu is  a film about non-binary gender terms in Hawaiin trandition. To include this film in the programme is also to challenge the borders of Asia. 

I don’t know if Asia is a piece of wonderland, but fairy tales do exist in Fairy Malcolm, but very ironically subverts hetero/homonormative romance. Last but not the least, when I talk about "queer Asia", one of the first persons I think of is Shu Lea Cheang. This time, I have selected four of her earlier works (Sex Fish, Sex Bowl, Fingers and Kisses, Coming Home). Although the distributor labelled these films as “lesbian shorts”, they are way beyond the identities of gender, race, nationality… Here I leave some space for us to reflect on this.