East Palace, West Palace (1996)

East Palace, West Palace 1996 / 东宫西宫 1996 / Behind the Forbidden City , City or Behind , Dong Gong Xi Gong ,

A park in the midst of Beijing, surrounded by old palaces, is frequently searched by the local police as it is one of the secret meeting places for the local gay scene. The young writer A Lan, on several occasions, runs into policeman Xiao Shi who ends up arresting the young man one evening and takes him to the park's police station. After one intense night of interrogation, which turns into A Lan telling the story of his past, Xiao Shi finds himself wondering whether his arrest of A Lan had other motives than he initially thought. This movie was forbidden by Chinese authorities for its open depiction of homosexuality in Mainland China when it first came out, and director Yuan Zhang was arrested for a short time and his passport taken away from him temporarily. Yet he managed to get a copy of the movie out of the country, and ‟East Palace, West Palace‟ has been aired at prestigious film festivals all over the world.