TIFF Talks's video: Shana Ye on LAN YU TIFF 2019

Seeing the Unseen: Re-Encountering Chinese Cinema https://tiff.net/calendar?series=chinese-cinema&list Shot clandestinely in Beijing without a government permit, Hong Kong auteur Stanley Kwan's tale of the love that blossoms between a successful businessman and a naive country boy was a daring attempt to depict gay love in a society that has yet to accept and recognize LGBTQ rights. Lan Yu (Liu Ye) is an impoverished student from the north who, desperately in need of money, agrees to a one-night-only sexual transaction, little expecting that this fateful encounter will introduce him to the love of his life: Chen Handong (Hu Jun), an international trader whose feelings for Lan Yu eventually overcome his attempt to keep him at a distance. Every time the two lovers' bodies come in contact, they know that their connection transcends purely physical desire — but what they cannot transcend is the imprisonment of socially normative judgement. Deeply romantic and profoundly tragic, Lan Yu has become an underground classic in Chinese LGBTQ communities. Guest Shana Ye Shana Ye is an assistant professor in the Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto. Her research areas are transnational feminism, queer studies, post-socialist studies, and theories of affect and trauma. She is currently working on her first book, Red Father, Pink Son, an ethnography-informed dystopian novel on queerness, the “rise of China,” and politics of memory. She also plays guitar and practices martial arts.