{"id":278139,"date":"2025-06-09T15:36:41","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T15:36:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/09\/this-must-be-the-place-a-queer-east-2\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T17:08:08","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:08:08","slug":"this-must-be-the-place-a-queer-east-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/09\/this-must-be-the-place-a-queer-east-2\/","title":{"rendered":"This Must Be the Place: A Queer East\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> [ad_1]<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tcocdn.com\/tco\/images\/QueerEastCollage1.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><em>This is the first of three pieces published in collaboration with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/queereast.org.uk\/news\/applications-are-now-open-for-emerging-critics-project-2025\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Queer East Film Festival<\/a>, whose Emerging Critics project brought together six writers for a programme of mentorship throughout the festival.<\/em><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><em\/><strong>Qinghan Chen<\/strong><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">This year, Queer East presents a more defiant stance to the public. I felt it within the first three minutes of Takeshi Kitano\u2019s <em>Kubi<\/em>, the festival\u2019s opening film. When a headless corpse suddenly appeared on screen, I covered my eyes and nearly screamed out loud. In the next two hours, heads were severed with the flash of blades; homoerotic scenes were folded into the political intrigue. I closed my eyes more than once, retreating into the darkness, anchoring myself emotionally. When a disfigured head was kicked off-screen, the film ended. I fully understood what curator Yi Wang had joked about in his opening introduction: if you feel uncomfortable, please close your eyes. <\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">In the cinema, I never know whether each passing moment will shock or stun me. Moving images pour down like a waterfall, an overused metaphor for queer desire, yet they are still potent enough to shatter my boundaries. But I can choose to close my eyes. With this act, my attention shifts away from the images on screen and turns inward, toward my own body. As a result, I become more aware of my existence. It feels like my eyes are building a temporary shelter, guarding my perception and granting me respite. When I am ready, I can open my eyes and jump back into that fleeting in-between space between myself and the screen. Perhaps I could discover new interactions between films and space.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">I experienced a perfect accident after traveling an hour and a half to reach the ESEA Community Centre, where the short film programme <em>Counter Archives<\/em> was held. The screening room is a narrow space with a skylight, loosely covered by a piece of black fabric. Due to British summer time, the lingering daylight disrupted the images on the screen, making them blurry and erratic. Yet this imperfection created a unique feeling for me. <\/p>\n<div class=\"my-10 bg-[var(--color-background-accent)] font-primary text-[16px] font-bold rounded-[16px] p-8\">\n<h3 class=\"mb-4 text-[24px]\">Get more Little White Lies<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>[ad_2]<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/lwlies.com\/festivals\/this-must-be-the-place-a-queer-east-correspondence\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] This is the first of three pieces published in collaboration with\u00a0Queer East Film Festival, whose Emerging Critics project brought together six writers for a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":278136,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278139"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}