YNOT at the Movies

The director Ruby Yang's (杨紫烨) heartbreaking documentary about devastating HIV/AIDS victims in China, "The Blood of Yingzhou District (颖州的孩子)" won the 2007 Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject. Following that film's success, Ruby Yang moved to China and worked on many projects related to public health, including anti-smoking and AIDS awareness campaigns in China. Recently, Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon created public service announcements (PSAs) called "Life Is Too Good" to promote safe sex.

Continuing on her worthy contributions, Ruby Yang's new film "Tongzhi in Love" (彼岸浮生 | China 2008 | in Mandarin | 30 min.) is probably the first documentary about gays in China. It tells the stories about gay men's double lives in modern China—on one hand they live in freer city gay life, and on the other hand they stay in the closet bearing the responsibility to produce an heir because often they are the only child to their parents.

The word Tongzi (同志) originally means "comrade" in Chinese. However, since the early 90s, Tongzhi has become a synonym for "gay" in Chinese in the LGBTQ community, and nowadays it is a widely used term referring to gay people by the public in China.

Riding the waves of the rapid social and economic progress in China, many gays begin to enjoy a much more tolerate atmosphere in China and to taste their newly found gay freedom in big cities such as Beijing and Chengdu. However, most of them cannot come out to their parents, and they still live a double life. That's because besides the conservative views toward gays in China, they also face the immense pressure uniquely in the Chinese culture based on Confucian (儒家) teaching.

One of the most prominent Confucian scholar Mencius (孟軻) once said:

"Among the three major offenses against filial piety, not producing an heir is the worst." (不孝有三无后为大.)

More than two thousand years later, more than a billion Chinese people still take Mencius's words close to their hearts. Obviously, it creates bigger challenge for gay men, because many of them are the only child in a family due to the One Child Policy started in 1980 in China.

This documentary investigates this complex scenario through three young gay men's personal stories. Via candid testimonies and lively interviews, these three characters share their opinions, their struggles, their sacrifices, their sorrows, and most importantly, their love for their parents. The film captures the heavy burden in these young men's minds and shows us how they walk the thin line between pursuing happiness and pleasing their parents, especially when the two cannot go hand in hand.

These Tongzhi are in love, but not without pain.

"Tongzhi in Love (彼岸浮生)" will be shown with "The Blood of Yingzhou District (颖州的孩子)" at Frameline 32.