Melbourne Documentary Film Festival 2020 - Intimate Strangers
Intimate Strangers is a 4-minute documentary about the journey of two Chinese homosexuals, Qiang and Yiling, looking for “marriage of convenience” within the Chinese LGBT group in Australia. Both of them are trying hard to find the perfect heterosexual “partner” with which to build a stable fake relationship.
Interview with Writer/Director/Editor Chouwa Liang
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
It was a surprise when I first encountered the topic of cooperative marriage among Chinese homosexual people, and that happened because I found a systematic blind dating website for Chinese LGBTs to arrange cooperative marriages overseas. Because of the uniqueness of this cultural phenomenon, I immediately engaged and decided to make a film about it.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
People who are interested in human rights, LGBT, and Asian topics will be interested in this documentary. I’m sure they will find something here they never imagined before.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
With time, my relationship with the participants became deeper and deeper. I shared their feelings and understood their difficulties. Rather than an outsider, I felt we were having the same anxiety that many Chinese people have, trying to escape from an ideological atmosphere through different ways but always ending up in the same initial position, as part of the deeply rooted Chinese culture. Like many young Chinese growing up in unhappy one-child families, the participants bear strong family responsibilities to make their parents happy, although they also need to sacrifice themselves sometimes. Specifically, the sacrifice made by my subjects is to hide their identities in order to achieve fake heterosexual marriages.
What is really important in this documentary, however, is the universality emerged from their psychological journeys, a universality with which an audience from different parts of the world will easily identify, as I did.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
This film went through a very difficult journey, especially when I was looking for participants. Over the course of one month, two people were recommended by their friends to talk to me. They said they were willing to expose their identities and share their stories with international audiences. I checked three times with them if they wanted face masks to protect themselves from being recognized. Both of them refused and told me they were happy to take the risks, stand out and speak for the Chinese LGBT community. As I said before, with time my perspective evolved from an outsider into an insider. Rather than judging them for not “being themselves” in this documentary, I changed my perspective into why they are making such a difficult decision.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
The feedback I received about this documentary is quite positive in general. People think I revealed a particular issue in a gentle and sympathetic way.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
I am looking for more opportunities to release my film on different platforms. Also, I am looking for an opportunity to extend my film into a longer version. I am also happy to discuss further ideas with filmmakers who are interested in this topic.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
I would include producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, and journalists.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
I hope the viewers will get to know, in 4 minutes, the fact that this complicated issue is happening everywhere, not only within certain national boundaries.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
Why Chinese homosexuals in Australia struggle to achieve fake heterosexual marriages?
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
I am developing an independent documentary about sexual assaults in China, and this is currently in the research process.
Interview: July 2020
We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
Intimate Strangers
Intimate Strangers is a 4-minute documentary about the journey of two Chinese homosexuals, Qiang and Yiling, looking for “marriage of convenience” within the Chinese LGBT group in Australia. Both of them are trying hard to find the perfect heterosexual “partner” with which to build a stable fake relationship.
Length: 4:18
Director: Chouwa Liang
Writer: Chouwa Liang
About the writer, director and producer:
CHOUWA LIANG is an Australia-based Chinese documentary filmmaker, researcher and language teacher. Currently, she is undertaking a Master of Fine Arts: Film and TV (Documentary Filmmaking) at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. She studied a Bachelor of Arts at the Capital Normal University in China, and a Master of Arts at Swansea University in the U.K. She worked as a Chinese lecturer/tutor at the University of Sydney and has also published a research paper about Australian-Chinese heritage language identity development.
Key cast: JEANNE KHIN (Cinematographer), WILLIAM HE (Sound Recordist), RACHEL TIERNEY(PM), ALY ZHANG(PA), JIAXIAN LI (Composer), SHENGQI XU (Graphic Designer)
Looking for: producers, buyers, distributors, journalists, sales agents, film festival directors
Facebook: Chouwa Liang
Hashtags used: #Aisan #China #LGBT #marriage
Funders: Self-funded
Where can I watch it next and in the coming month? Melbourne Documentary Film Festival/Melbourne