Inside the Chinese Closet

Screenings

2016 Season
London, New York, Toronto

In a nondescript lounge somewhere in Shanghai, men and women giggle, eyeing prospective partners, visibly nervous about making the first move. This isn’t your average matchmaking event—it’s a “fake-marriage fair” where gay men and lesbian women meet in an attempt to make matrimonial deals with members of the opposite sex to satisfy social and familial expectations of a heterosexual marriage. And pretend marriages are just the start. Touching and troubling in equal measure, Inside the Chinese Closet exposes the difficult decisions young LGBT individuals must make when forced to balance their quest for love with parental and cultural expectations. 

Filmmaker(s): 
Sophia Luvara
Year: 
2015
70m
Language(s): 
English, Mandarin
Genre: 
Documentary
Filmmaker Bio(s): 
Sophia Luvara
Director

Sophia Luvarà received her MSc with merit in Medical Biotechnology from the University of Turin, where she also studied for a PhD in Cancer Research, but in 2007 she discontinued her studies and moved to London to follow her passion for documentary filmmaking. In 2008 she attended the Documentary Filmmaking course at the London Film Academy and subsequently directed a number of independent documentaries,

“Amazing in its depiction of how LGBT thirty somethings—living in slick metropolises, armed with iPhones—are still suffocated by traditional expectations that they will marry and have kids, and the lengths they go to fulfil those expectations.” - Sophie Richardson, China director, Asia Division

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