East Palace, West Palace [35mm]

Director: Yuan Zhang

1996 / 90min / 35mm

One of the first films from Mainland China to explore queer life, Zhang’s film revolves around a young gay writer who, pinched by police during a night raid in a Beijing park, recounts his troubled childhood, sexual awakening, and ongoing search for love to an interrogating officer in an extended interview that takes on an unmistakably sexually charged character. A sumptuously shot film about forbidden desire and the erotics of power, anchored by Si Han and Hu Jun’s nuanced central performances as the detainee and questioner. “Beats Genet’s Un Chant d’Amour, Fassbinder’s Querelle, and even Todd Haynes’s Poison as the most Genet-esque movie ever made.”—Tony Rayns, Sight & Sound