Will You Look at Me

After spending some time in New York, filmmaker Shuli Huang returns to his hometown of Wenzhou. Without his lover, who is about to start studying in Belgium, he is alone with his family. Huang’s mother can’t accept that her  son is gay, and begs him to lead a “normal” life. We hear their conversations in the form of a voice-over, as they run the gamut from self-reproach and wailing to emotional blackmail. Motherly love and social conventions collide painfully time after time, without any resolution.

Huang edited the conversations to Super8 material filmed during his visit home, of a city through fogged-up glasses, loving shots of his mother, flashes of his father, and the filmmaker himself: a shadow, waving to the camera but never truly in view. This intimate and gorgeously composed film won the director a Queer Palm at Semaine de la Critique in Cannes.