That is the primary of three items revealed in collaboration with Queer East Movie Competition, whose Rising Critics undertaking introduced collectively six writers for a programme of mentorship all through the competition.
Qinghan Chen
This yr, Queer East presents a extra defiant stance to the general public. I felt it inside the first three minutes of Takeshi Kitano’s Kubi, the competition’s opening movie. When a headless corpse out of the blue appeared on display screen, I coated my eyes and almost screamed out loud. Within the subsequent two hours, heads have been severed with the flash of blades; homoerotic scenes have been folded into the political intrigue. I closed my eyes greater than as soon as, retreating into the darkness, anchoring myself emotionally. When a disfigured head was kicked off-screen, the movie ended. I totally understood what curator Yi Wang had joked about in his opening introduction: for those who really feel uncomfortable, please shut your eyes.
Within the cinema, I by no means know whether or not every passing second will shock or stun me. Shifting photos pour down like a waterfall, an overused metaphor for queer need, but they’re nonetheless potent sufficient to shatter my boundaries. However I can select to shut my eyes. With this act, my consideration shifts away from the pictures on display screen and turns inward, towards my very own physique. Because of this, I develop into extra conscious of my existence. It looks like my eyes are constructing a brief shelter, guarding my notion and granting me respite. When I’m prepared, I can open my eyes and bounce again into that fleeting in-between house between myself and the display screen. Maybe I may uncover new interactions between movies and house.
I skilled an ideal accident after touring an hour and a half to achieve the ESEA Group Centre, the place the quick movie programme Counter Archives was held. The screening room is a slender house with a skylight, loosely coated by a bit of black material. Because of British summer season, the lingering daylight disrupted the pictures on the display screen, making them blurry and erratic. But this imperfection created a singular feeling for me.
