New Beijing, New Marriage (2009) and The VaChina Monologues (2013), documentaries in the 11th Pink Life QueerFest selection by the Chinese artist, curator and writer Popo Fan, with whom the QueerFest family is closely acquainted and with whom it has had many collaborations, focus on performance-oriented activism in China. Organizing the Beijing Queer Film Festival for more than 10 years and having established the Queer University Video Training Camp in China, Fan has made documentaries that record the LGBTI+ movement in China. Fan's fiction films The Drum Tower (2018) and Beer! Beer! (2019), on the other hand, deal with the stories of two different coincidental encounters that took place in Beijing and Berlin, where Fan lived for a long time, within the political and social dynamics of these two cities.
New Beijing, New Marriage
Directors: Popo Fan, David Zheng
China, 2009, HD, color, 18’
Director Popo Fan’s debut work recording a campaign on the Valentine’s Day in 2019, when a gay couple and a lesbian couple chose to have their wedding photos taken on the Qianmen Street in Beijing. On this beautiful spring day in Beijing, a lot of interesting conversations were made.
The VaChina Monologues
Director: Popo Fan
China, 2013, HD, color, 28’
The Chinese Department of Sun Yat-sen University (Guangzhou) staged the Chinese debut of The VaChina Monologues in Dec. 2003. Since then, this feminist play, which came from the US and has been committed to the elimination of gender-based violence, had incited a vagina hurricane that blew all over mainland China. Zhihe Society of Fudan University, Shanghai Beaver Club, Beijing Bcome Group, all these different crews performed this play in various ways. On campuses they performed, in theatres they performed, in cafes they performed, on the streets they performed, and on public transportation they performed. The VaChina Monologues received many Chinese names: Cloudy Vagina, Our Vaginas, OurSelves, and For Vagina’s Sake. All these names have the same so-called “ear-piercing” keyword—VAGINA.
The Drum Tower
Director: Popo Fan
Cast: Chao Xiaomi, Kacchan
China, 2018, HD, color, 18’
Kacchan is a senior school student who wanders through “hutong” every day, escaping from classes. Once by accident, he meets a vintage shop owner in a public toilet and is fascinated by her, Miss Mi. The identity of being a transgender brings some inconvenience to Miss Mi’s life, at the same time her vintage shop is faced with being demolished. Kacchan sees her life in his eyes but can’t do anything to help, until the very day comes.
Beer! Beer!
Director: Popo Fan
Cast: Marc Philipps, Popo Fan
Germany, 2019, HD, black&white, 17’
Beer! Beer! is an anti-romantic comedy set in the early morning following a wild party in Berlin. When Tao, a Chinese guy, meets Sebastian, a local German. As they seem to get more and more intimate with each other, suddenly a mattress changes everything...
This life-size portrait of a girl is a fine example of the British art of portrait painting in the early 18th century. The child is shown posing on a terrace, which is enclosed at the right foreground by the plinth of a pillar; the background is mainly filled with trees and shrubs.
Coffee was served with much splendor at the harems of the Ottoman palace and mansions. First, sweets (usually jam) was served on silverware, followed by coffee serving. The coffee jug would be placed in a sitil (brazier), which had three chains on its sides for carrying, had cinders in the middle, and was made of tombac, silver or brass. The sitil had a satin or silk cover embroidered with silver thread, tinsel, sequin or even pearls and diamonds.
Following the opening of his studio, “El Chark Societe Photographic,” on Beyoğlu’s Postacılar Caddesi in 1857, the Levantine-descent Pascal Sébah moves to yet another studio next to the Russian Embassy in 1860 with a Frenchman named A. Laroche, who, apart from having worked in Paris previously, is also quite familiar with photographic techniques.
Tuesday - Saturday 10:00 - 19:00
Friday 10:00 - 22:00
Sunday 12:00 - 18:00
The museum is closed on Mondays.
On Wednesdays, the students can
visit the museum free of admission.
Full ticket: 200 TL
Discounted: 100 TL
Groups: 150 TL (minimum 10 people)