Hong-Kong-Canadian film director Quentin Lee has made a short film highlighting the practice of ‘fake’ marriages, where a gay man and lesbian woman marry, in China.
The film, Wedding Plan, released on the Queer Comrades website last week shows a male-female couple preparing for their wedding and meeting the man’s mother. The twist is that she is surprised and asks her son what happened to his boyfriend. “Mom just wants you to be yourself,” she says. “Don’t worry what people say.”
Veteran Chinese gay rights activist Xiaogang Wei and actress Meng Tingyi star in the film.
Director Lee, who attended UCLA film school and has released six feature films, said in a press release:
“One of my Beijing lesbian friends told me that she was about to get married with a gay man because she wanted to get her parents off her back, and I was immediately inspired to do something about how young Chinese people, LGBT and beyond, are pressured to get married which is a really hot issue right now.
“I chose the short fictional PSA [public service announcement] format because it’s the best way to get the message out to Chinese audience on the web. The Chinese government is still relaxed on short film production. As all LGBT content is potentially subject to being banned in China, it’s a challenge to do something that talks about LGBT issues while being acceptable.”
Family pressure means that many gay people in China enter into straight marriages. Earlier this year a court ruled women who married gay men could have their marriages annulled rather than divorced.
Watch the film here:
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