- Jun 25
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 2
Pride in Ordinary Times
Beyond Trauma: Five Contemporary Chinese Queer Shorts
For much of its history, queer Chinese-language cinema has often been understood through narratives of marginalisation, secrecy, and survival. From censorship and social stigma to familial pressure and legal precarity, queer lives have frequently appeared on screen through the lens of struggle.
While these histories remain important, they are not the only stories that deserve to be told.
Pride in Ordinary Times brings together five short films from mainland China, the Chinese diaspora, and the United Kingdom that move beyond narratives of trauma to explore what happens after visibility. Rather than focusing solely on suffering, these works turn their attention towards everyday acts of becoming: falling in love, getting married, reconciling with family, negotiating faith, discovering desire, and learning to inhabit one's own body.
Taken together, the programme reveals a new generation of Chinese-language queer filmmakers increasingly concerned not only with resistance but also with subjectivity. These films ask how queer people imagine happiness, intimacy, pleasure, belonging, and futures for themselves. They remind us that pride is not always found in grand political gestures. Sometimes it exists in small conversations, private discoveries, moments of celebration, and the quiet courage of living authentically.
Moving between fiction, documentary, and experimental cinema, Pride in Ordinary Times offers a portrait of queer life that is at once personal and political, local and transnational, fragile and hopeful. Together, these works invite audiences to look beyond trauma and towards the diverse possibilities of queer existence today.
The Night (Jenny Zhang, 2023)
The Night follows two young women as they gradually come to confront and affirm themselves under the pressures of social norms and family expectations. While the protagonists’ journeys reflect queer experiences familiar to many East Asian family contexts, the film refuses to remain confined within narratives of shame, repression, and trauma. Instead, it turns its attention to the formation of self-awareness and the assertion of emotional agency.
When the protagonist decides to seek out the person she still loves, the film’s emotional centre quietly shifts from fear to choice. Growing up no longer means compromise or loss, but rather the active affirmation of one’s identity, desires, and emotional commitments. Love is not entirely destroyed by familial structures; through belated courage and honesty, it regains the possibility of being realised. Gentle yet resolute, the film reminds us that queer life is not only about trauma but also about the capacity to love and the freedom to choose love.
My Dear Dear Home (Yue Ran, 2026)
After marrying her partner in Switzerland, filmmaker Yue Ran returns to China and turns her camera towards the long and candid conversations she shares with her mother. Deeply personal in nature, My Dear Dear Home establishes an inherent dramatic tension from the outset: on one side stands a daughter who has embraced her identity and relationship, and on the other, a mother shaped by more traditional understandings of family and marriage.
Yet the film refuses to reduce this generational gap to an irreconcilable conflict. Through repeated conversations, moments of mutual observation, and the intimacy of everyday life, it carefully traces how understanding is gradually produced within relationships and how new forms of connection emerge through communication and companionship.
By documenting a genuine journey home, the film suggests that acceptance does not necessarily arise from a complete transformation of beliefs. It may also emerge through love, care, and the empathetic moments created by sustained dialogue. My Dear Dear Home challenges the assumption that queer identity and family are destined to be at odds. Here, the family ceases to be merely a site of oppression or regulation and becomes a space open to renegotiation and renewed understanding.
Christian (Pan Chuqiao, 2024)
Through the perspective of a young Asian man living in London, Christian explores the complex intersections of sexuality, faith, race, and migration.
Religion has long been framed as an opposing force within queer narratives. Rather than reproducing this binary, however, the film presents a nuanced portrait of an individual continually negotiating, struggling with, and seeking balance between seemingly conflicting aspects of his identity. It is less concerned with determining whether faith or queerness should prevail than with understanding how both can coexist within a single life.
Set against the backdrop of diasporic existence, the film extends its inquiry to questions of cultural belonging and spiritual identity. With restraint and sincerity, it documents an ongoing process of self-exploration. Christian reminds us that queer experience is not always defined by escape or resistance; it is equally about finding ways to live with uncertainty, contradiction, and the complexities of the self.
New Beijing, New Marriage (Fan Popo, 2009)
Filmed on Valentine’s Day in 2009, New Beijing, New Marriage follows two same-sex couples in Beijing as they prepare for their weddings and bring their celebrations into public space. Faced with curiosity, scrutiny, scepticism, and misunderstanding from passers-by, they present their love openly and unapologetically.
Today, the documentary functions both as a valuable historical record and as a celebration in its own right. It preserves a moment when the public expression of same-sex love was still regarded as an unusual spectacle, documenting an early chapter in the struggle for queer visibility and public presence in China.
What makes the film most moving, however, is not the discrimination it encounters but its commitment to joy. Rather than claiming visibility through anger or confrontation, the couples bring happiness itself into public space through the ritual of marriage. Their presence transforms marriage from a social institution into a gentle yet powerful declaration. Through laughter, embraces, and celebration, the film highlights an often-overlooked dimension of queer life: alongside resistance and suffering, love, joy, and celebration are equally important forms of public expression.
Modern Masturbation Allegory (Li Xinyi, 2024)
With a bold and experimental visual language, Modern Masturbation Allegory turns its gaze directly towards the body itself. Combining personal footage, interviews, diary filmmaking, and experimental montage, it transforms masturbation—a topic long considered taboo—into an exploration of desire, loneliness, pleasure, and self-understanding.
Through the stories and experiences shared by different individuals, masturbation becomes more than a sexual act; it emerges as a means of understanding the self, experiencing the body, and affirming subjectivity. Each account of desire also reflects how individuals relate to themselves, to social norms, and to broader cultural imaginaries.
Within Chinese-speaking cultural contexts, conversations about bodily pleasure and sexuality have long remained marginalised or unspoken. The film therefore pushes queer discourse beyond questions of identity politics towards embodied experience and the construction of subjectivity. It shifts attention away from external recognition and visibility towards inner freedom and self-realisation. By revisiting some of the most intimate, everyday, yet frequently repressed aspects of bodily experience, Modern Masturbation Allegory asserts the queer right to feel, express, and define one’s own desires.
Venue
The Arzner Cinema
10 Bermondsey Square, London, SE1 3UN
Wednesday, 8 July 2026 | 8:15–10:35 pm
Tickets
Tickets can be purchased via The Arzner’s official booking page. We recommend booking in advance to secure your seat.
*Audience Benefits:
1. Exclusive CathayPlay Membership Discount
Audience members who like, share, save, and comment on the event post on Xiaohongshu, Instagram, or Facebook, and attend the screening with a valid ticket, will be eligible for 20% off all CathayPlay membership plans.
The discount applies to monthly, quarterly, and annual subscriptions.
Please note that this offer is valid for first-time purchases only. Membership renewals will be charged at the standard rate. Users may choose any subscription plan and apply the discount code at checkout.
2. Free Membership Giveaway
All ticket holders attending the screening will be entered into a lucky draw.
One audience member will receive a free one-month CathayPlay membership, granting unlimited access to all films available on the platform for one month.
We warmly invite you to discover more outstanding Chinese-language cinema through CathayPlay.
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