SPECIAL PROGRAM

Macao International Queer Film Festival

Continuing our journey without pause, after the self-funded inaugural edition, we haven't halted our steps. This is because the queer community has never ceased to tell stories. The world is filled with diversity, and so are the stories captured through the lens. The 2nd Macao International Queer Film Festival, themed "LOVE IS THE ANSWER," selected 14 feature films and 5 short films of diverse themes and styles, showcasing the multifaceted nature of the queer community. From the intimate spaces of home, we witness the boundless possibilities of diverse families. Through documentation and the lens of child, we catch glimpses of the idealism for which transgender individuals continue to strive, yet have not fully achieved. We experience the joys and sorrows of queer life through stories of enduring love, and we follow the pioneering spirit of queer filmmaker into the avant-garde world of liberated imagery. In these films, we find a common thread - love. MIQFF, likewise, upholds the principle of love by faithfully presenting the diversity of queer characters through its film selection. Films tell stories, and through these stories shown to audiences, the portrayal of characters' lives is what's considered "real," rather than the flat and singular stereotypes found in traditional values. Queer cinema equally represents the rich diversity of queer life experiences. "LOVE IS THE ANSWER" is not just a slogan but a matter of understanding and acceptance. Love guides us toward the bridge of initiating dialogue with society. Love is the answer.

Continuing our journey without pause, after the self-funded inaugural edition, we haven't halted our steps. This is because the queer community has never ceased to tell stories. The world is filled with diversity, and so are the stories captured through the lens. The 2nd Macao International Queer Film Festival, themed "LOVE IS THE ANSWER," selected 14 feature films and 5 short films of diverse themes and styles, showcasing the multifaceted nature of the queer community. From the intimate spaces of home, we witness the boundless possibilities of diverse families. Through documentation and the lens of child, we catch glimpses of the idealism for which transgender individuals continue to strive, yet have not fully achieved. We experience the joys and sorrows of queer life through stories of enduring love, and we follow the pioneering spirit of queer filmmaker into the avant-garde world of liberated imagery. In these films, we find a common thread - love. MIQFF, likewise, upholds the principle of love by faithfully presenting the diversity of queer characters through its film selection. Films tell stories, and through these stories shown to audiences, the portrayal of characters' lives is what's considered "real," rather than the flat and singular stereotypes found in traditional values. Queer cinema equally represents the rich diversity of queer life experiences. "LOVE IS THE ANSWER" is not just a slogan but a matter of understanding and acceptance. Love guides us toward the bridge of initiating dialogue with society. Love is the answer.
Murmur of Youth (2K Restoration)(2nd MIQFF)
106 Minutes
Two girls both named Mei-li come from different backgrounds, similarly puzzling over the joy and confusion of puberty. One day, due to their job, their life starts to have an intersection. Sharing the intimate experience with each other, they explore and reveal their undiscovered desire for love.
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Nitrate Kisses(2nd MIQFF)(Pornography)
67 Minutes
In her first feature, after decades as a pioneer of lesbian cinema, Barbara Hammer weaves striking images of four contemporary gay and lesbian couples with footage of an unearthed, forbidden, and invisible history, searching eroded emulsions and images for lost vestiges of queer culture. Questions of historic representation are examined through addressing the margins, between-the-line readings, and images outside of prescribed textual boundaries. Archival footage from Lot in Sodom (1933), often regarded as the first queer film made in the United States, as well as footage from German narrative and documentary films of the thirties, are interwoven with contemporary footage in this multi-faceted, haunting documentary.

"Nitrate Kisses questions how history is recorded and encourages the viewer, gay or straight, to save scraps, letters, books, records, and snapshots in order to preserve our 'ordinary' lives as history." — Barbara Hammer
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Barbara Hammer: Short Film Compilation(2nd MIQFF)(Pornography)
76 Minutes
This short film compilation showcases the works of Barbara Hammer, a pioneer in American experimental queer cinema. Included are "I Was/ I Am" (1973), "Women I Love" (1976), "Optic Nerve" (1985), "No No Nooky T.V." (1987), and "Sanctus" (1990). In "I Was/ I Am," the filmmaker changes from a damsel in gown and crown to a leather jacket motorcycle dyke. “Women I Love” shows a series of cameo portraits of the filmmaker's friends and lovers intercut with a playful celebration of fruits and vegetables in nature. “Optic Nerve” is a powerful personal reflection on family and aging. “No No Nooky T.V.” is a witty and stunning film about how women view their sexuality versus the way male images of women and sex are perceived. “Sanctus” is a film of the rephotographed moving x-rays. Making the invisible visible, the film reveals the skeletal structure of the human body as it protects the hidden fragility of interior organ systems.
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Kubi(2nd MIQFF)
131 Minutes
Meng Kerou is a seventeen-year-old high school student who often laments that she is no longer a carefree soul. She believes that she is carrying one secret too many. One day, she decides to unburden her secret on Zhang, a fellow seventeen-year-old. Zhang Shihao, a blithe spirit, is a guileless one. His two dearest wishes are to win the swimming championship and to become Meng’s sweetheart. He was definitely unprepared for what Meng was about to tell him.

Meng’s little secret scorches them both. Even though the two teenagers have tasted adulthood, they still remain young and naive. At the age of seventeen, they are handed one of the most confusing philosophical puzzles in modern culture: homosexuality.?When Zhang’s love was denied by Meng, the two seize to be friends. The two tired souls intentionally separate from each other, attempting to block out what they cannot see. For them, salvation comes as a promise that maybe someday they will meet again, in front of a big blue gate.
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Femme(2nd MIQFF)
99 Minutes
Jules’ life and career as a drag queen is destroyed by a homophobic attack. But after a chance encounter with his attacker, the deeply closeted Preston, he is presented with the opportunity to exact revenge. Unrecognisable out of his wig and make-up, Jules infiltrates Preston’s life and in doing so discovers the lines of seduction, revenge and power are blurred.
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The Lost Boys(2nd MIQFF)
83 Minutes
Joe is about to be released from a detention centre. Should the judge approve his discharge, he will be allowed to live on his own. But when a new detainee, William, arrives in his facility, Joe starts to question his desire for freedom.
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The Last Year of Darkness(2nd MIQFF)
95 Minutes
As the city of Chengdu changes, the future of beloved club Funky Town is unclear. For a vibrant group of DJs, drag performers, lovers, ravers, and skaters this is a sanctuary for underground partying and allows them to thrive after the sun sets. It’s the one place that accepts them for who they really are, whilst they run away from their problems during the day. With construction cranes looming from an encroaching metro station, the friends are forced to face what brought them to the party in the first place and make the most of their remaining time there.

The Last Year of Darkness is a coming-of-age film that celebrates the ephemerality of youth—from love to loss, from throwing up to growing up.
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MUTT(2nd MIQFF)
87 Minutes
Feña, a young trans guy bustling through life in New York City, is faced with an increasingly challenging day. Over 24 hours, his foreign father, his straight ex-boyfriend, and his 13-year old half-sister are thrust back into his life. Having lost touch since transitioning, Feña must navigate the new dynamics of these old relationships while tackling the day-to-day challenges that come with living a life in between.
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Amal(2nd MIQFF)
107 Minutes
Amal, a French teacher in a Brussels high school, encourages her students to cultivate a passion for reading, defend freedom of expression and promote acceptance of others. But her outspokenness upsets some students and colleagues tied to Islamic extremism, which vehemently opposes her teaching methods. Yet Amal stands her ground, especially when she has to help one of her students, the discreet Monia, who, suspected of being homosexual, has been attacked, harassed and threatened.
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Silver Haze(2nd MIQFF)
102 Minutes
23-year-old Franky is a nurse who lives with her large family in an East London borough. Obsessed with a thirst for revenge and a need to assign guilt for a traumatic event that happened 15 years before, she is unable to build any meaningful relationship until she falls in love with one of her patients – Florence. They escape to the coast where Florence lives
with her more open-minded patchwork family. There, Franky finds the emotional shelter to deal with the grudges of the past.
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20,000 Species of Bees (2nd MIQFF)
128 Minutes
An eight-year-old child struggles with the fact that people keep addressing her in confusing ways. During a summer in the Basque Country among the beehives, she explores her identity alongside the women of her family, who at the same time reflect on their own lives and desires.
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Blue Gate Crossing(2nd MIQFF)
83 Minutes
Meng Kerou is a seventeen-year-old high school student who often laments that she is no longer a carefree soul. She believes that she is carrying one secret too many. One day, she decides to unburden her secret on Zhang, a fellow seventeen-year-old. Zhang Shihao, a blithe spirit, is a guileless one. His two dearest wishes are to win the swimming championship and to become Meng’s sweetheart. He was definitely unprepared for what Meng was about to tell him.

Meng’s little secret scorches them both. Even though the two teenagers have tasted adulthood, they still remain young and naive. At the age of seventeen, they are handed one of the most confusing philosophical puzzles in modern culture: homosexuality.?When Zhang’s love was denied by Meng, the two seize to be friends. The two tired souls intentionally separate from each other, attempting to block out what they cannot see. For them, salvation comes as a promise that maybe someday they will meet again, in front of a big blue gate.
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Till The End of the Night(2nd MIQFF)
122 Minutes
Robert, an undercover, teams with Leni, who has been released on parole to play along, to gain the trust of a criminal, Victor, at a dance class. Robert and Leni – he gay, she trans – make a great couple and soon have the criminal on the hook. Or is it he who has entrapped them? And are there not more feelings at play in this supposedly fake love affair? Christoph Hochhäusler’s newest film is an ingenious portrait of the emotional intellect that is as witty as it is touching.
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Housekeeping for Beginners (2nd MIQFF)
107 Minutes
Dita’s stately old house in the hills of Skopje is the unlikely home to a wild group of queer
people, among them her moody friend Toni and his new, much younger boyfriend Ali. When her partner Suada is diagnosed with a terminal illness, the emotionally removed Dita is forced to promise she will raise Suada’s two girls - cheeky little Mia and temperamental, increasingly rebellious teen Vanesa. Dita doesn’t want to be a mother and the girls don’t want to be her daughters. But to save this patchwork family Dita has to act quickly and maybe even marry the only available man around.
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Kokomo City (2nd MIQFF)
73 Minutes
In the wildly entertaining and refreshingly unfiltered documentary Kokomo City, filmmaker D. Smith passes the mic to four Black transgender sex workers in Atlanta and New York City – Daniella Carter, Koko Da Doll, Liyah Mitchell, and Dominique Silver – who unapologetically break down the walls of their profession. Holding nothing back, the film vibrates with energy, sex, challenge, and hard-earned wisdom.
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The Met: Live in HD

The Met: Live in HD presents high-definition screenings of opera performances in the Metropolitan Opera House, one of the best opera houses in the world. Its dazzling productions are filmed by 14 different cameras in high definition format and transmitted to cinemas across the world. The Metropolitan Opera pioneered live HD movie-theater simulcasts in 2006. The acclaimed performances now reach over 2,000 venues in 70 countries and receive rave reviews. The impact of the live performance remains spectacular on screen. For The Met: Live in HD 2023-24 season, Emperor Cinemas brings the Hong Kong premieres of Jake Heggie’s contemporary masterpiece Dead Man Walking with brand new production by Tony Award winner Ivo van Hove, Verdi’s Nabucco that shows ancient Babylon in classic biblical staging, and Bizet’s Carmen in modern setting. Gounod’s love tragedy Roméo et Juliette, Puccini’s bittersweet La Rondine, and Puccini’s devastating Madama Butterfly will be presented at Emperor Cinemas as well.

The Met: Live in HD presents high-definition screenings of opera performances in the Metropolitan Opera House, one of the best opera houses in the world. Its dazzling productions are filmed by 14 different cameras in high definition format and transmitted to cinemas across the world. The Metropolitan Opera pioneered live HD movie-theater simulcasts in 2006. The acclaimed performances now reach over 2,000 venues in 70 countries and receive rave reviews. The impact of the live performance remains spectacular on screen. For The Met: Live in HD 2023-24 season, Emperor Cinemas brings the Hong Kong premieres of Jake Heggie’s contemporary masterpiece Dead Man Walking with brand new production by Tony Award winner Ivo van Hove, Verdi’s Nabucco that shows ancient Babylon in classic biblical staging, and Bizet’s Carmen in modern setting. Gounod’s love tragedy Roméo et Juliette, Puccini’s bittersweet La Rondine, and Puccini’s devastating Madama Butterfly will be presented at Emperor Cinemas as well.
Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (The Met 2024)
210 Minutes
Extraordinary soprano Asmik Grigorian tackles the demanding role of Cio-Cio-San, the loyal geisha at the heart of Puccini’s devastating tragedy. Tenor Jonathan Tetelman stars as the callous American naval officer Pinkerton, whose betrayal destroys her. Mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong reprises the role of the steadfast maid Suzuki, and baritone Lucas Meachem is the American consul Sharpless. Acclaimed maestro Xian Zhang takes the podium to conduct Anthony Minghella’s vivid production.
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Puccini’s La Rondine (The Met 2024)
182 Minutes
Puccini’s bittersweet love story arrives in cinemas with soprano Angel Blue starring as the French courtesan Magda, opposite tenor Jonathan Tetelman as Ruggero, an idealistic young man who offers her an alternative to her life of excess. Maestro Speranza Scappucci conducts Nicolas Joël’s Art Deco–inspired staging, which transports audiences from the heart of Parisian nightlife to a dreamy vision of the French Riviera. Soprano Emily Pogorelc and tenor Bekhzod Davronov complete the sterling cast as Lisette and Prunier.
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Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette (The Met 2024)
226 Minutes
Two singers at the height of their powers—radiant soprano Nadine Sierra and tenor sensation Benjamin Bernheim—come together as the star-crossed lovers in Gounod’s sumptuous Shakespeare adaptation, with Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin on the podium to conduct one of the repertoire’s most romantic scores. Bartlett Sher’s towering staging also features baritone Will Liverman and tenor Frederick Ballentine as the archrivals Mercutio and Tybalt, mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey as the mischievous pageboy Stéphano, and bass-baritone Alfred Walker as Frère Laurent.
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Bizet’s Carmen (The Met 2024)
223 Minutes
Acclaimed English director Carrie Cracknell brings a vital new production of one of opera’s most enduringly powerful works, reinvigorating the classic story with a staging that moves the action to the modern day and finds at the heart of the drama issues that could not be more relevant today: gendered violence, abusive labor structures, and the desire to break through societal boundaries. Dazzling young mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina leads a powerhouse quartet of stars in the complex and volatile title role, alongside tenor Piotr Becza?a as Carmen’s troubled lover Don?José, soprano Angel Blue as the loyal Micaëla, and bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen as the swaggering Escamillo. Daniele Rustioni conducts Bizet’s heart-pounding score.
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