Shanghai Pride Film Festival

ShanghaiPRIDE Film Festival 2021 Is Now Open for Submissions!

ShanghaiPRIDE Film Festival (ShPFF) returns in June 2021 (tbd) to celebrate 13 years of sharing onscreen stories about the love, hardships, growth and triumphs of LGBTQ individuals in China, Asia and around the world. We are very excited to reunite the community for a festival of LGBTQ films again this year!

ShanghaPRIDE’s cinematic component has come a long way over the past 13 years, evolving from a single film night to a vibrant festival that supports emerging Chinese filmmakers while showcasing international queer cinema to audiences in Shanghai.

ShPFF began as a collaboration with the Beijing Queer Film Festival (now Love Queer Film Festival) to host film screenings and discussions. Since 2012, we’ve collaborated with foreign consulates in Shanghai to screen foreign LGBTQ films, and in 2014, ShPFF created an independent category for Chinese LGBTQ films.

In 2015, ShPFF launched the first annual Chinese LGBTQ Short Film Competition, in which the winner competes in the UK’s Iris Prize Festival, a tradition that has since continued every year. In the same year, we also co-founded the Asia-Pacific Queer Film Festival Alliance (APQFFA) with ten other LGBTQ film festivals from throughout the region.

In 2015, acclaimed actor, Peipei Cheng opened ShPFF with her film, Lilting, where she played the role of a mother of a gay son. The trailblazing director of East Palace, West Palace, Yuan Zhang, joined us in 2016 for a screening and Q&A to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the film, while esteemed actor Sir Ian McKellen sent his wishes to the festival that same year. In 2017, ShPFF traveled to Sydney, Hong Kong, and Taipei to share Chinese LGBTQ films.

In 2018, our milestone tenth anniversary festival ran for 12 days, with 45 hours of film. The submissions for the Chinese Short Film Awards achieved an all-time high of 50 films. We also welcomed award-winning and nominated films like Alifu, The Prince/ss (Taiwan Golden Horse Awards 2017) and 120 BPM (Caesar Award 2017, Cannes Film Festival 2017 and Palme d’Or Award 2017), in which the main actor of the former, Utjung Tjakivalid and co-screenwriter of the latter, Philippe Mangeot joined us for a full-house Q&A.

Our 2019 festival was an 11-day marathon, including the Berlin International Film Festival Teddy Jury Award Winner, A Dog Barking at the Moon, as the opening film. The audience did a Q&A with Xiang Zi, the director of the film via video chat. Another highlight was a special curation, the Nordic Day, which we collaborated with foreign consulates from the Nordic countries. Vincent Lacoste, star in Sorry Angel surprised the Shanghai audience right before the festival with a lively discussion during his visit. The Best Film of the Chinese Short Film Awards, We Outlaws, was among the leading nominations in UK Iris Prize Festival too!

Unfortunately in 2020, due to the pandemic, like many fellow LGBTQ film festivals around the world, we have to postpone the festival. We managed to announce the nominees for Chinese Short Film Award and hopefully able to screen them alongside with international entries in 2021.

ShPFF 2021 will once again offer an exciting roster of events and unique opportunities for filmmakers. The submissions period for the festival begins TODAY, and we are thrilled to welcome Chinese and international LGBTQ films and filmmakers to join us on this amazing journey.