women directors programme
Love Bound
(Shanshan Chen / 2024 / 80 min / United Kingdom)
LGBTQ+ activist Qiuyan Chen (Qiubai) became an unexpected celebrity due to her courageous legal battle against homophobic university textbooks in the 2010s.
However, this newfound fame came at a price: she was outed by her tutor, subjected to conversion therapy by her parents, and monitored by the Chinese government. To escape these pressures, Qiuyan left for the UK, where she met her partner Bling: but her struggles were far from over.
Interweaving reflections on Qiuyan’s sexuality and relationships, Shanshan Chen’s documentary examines this inspiring activist’s commitment to building a close-knit community designed to support queer East Asian people in the UK: a solo endeavour that evolves into a movement with a growing support base. Love Bound is a compelling story about love, resilience, and the ongoing struggle for a better world.
Director’s statement :
Creating and editing Love Bound has fundamentally transformed my approach to documentary filmmaking. Despite over a decade of experience, this was the first time I worked with material collected over an extended period, including deeply personal and intimate archives from the protagonists. Building the trust and relationships necessary to reveal the unseen side of one of China’s most prominent LGBTQ+ activists was both a privilege and a responsibility for me as a filmmaker. The film aims to inspire others to join the movement for a fairer and better future for all.
Qiubai and I both come from China, where laws still do not explicitly protect sexual orientation or gender identity. While some discriminatory laws against LGBTQIA+ individuals were only recently changed, crackdowns on LGBTQIA+ communities and activities have intensified since around 2017.
Qiubai’s story is particularly powerful due to its intersectionality. Since her arrival in the UK, the challenges she faced in China have been compounded by rising hostility towards the Chinese community. Moreover, few documentaries explore the intersection of race and sexuality in East Asian communities, and lesbians and queer women remain underrepresented in film and TV as a whole.
Shanshan Chen
Shanshan CHEN is documentary filmmaker originally from China, with a flair for gaining access to original stories, and having produced and directed films on complex and sensitive issues across five continents. Shanshan’s documentaries have appeared on platforms including the BBC, PBS, Reuters, Al Jazeera, CNA, and TIME, and have garnered international accolades.
With nearly 15 years of experience covering under-reported global stories, Shanshan is renowned for her visually driven, character-led storytelling, blending in-depth social investigation that inspires change. She previously worked on PBS SoCal’s “Earth Focus” environmental series as a producer. The episode that she produced and directed, “Fighting for Air”, won two Southern California Journalism Awards.
After completing her hour-long investigative documentary “Catching a Pervert” with the BBC in 2023 as the producer-director, she collaborated with several broadcasters, including as a casting producer for the 2024 CNA docu-series “Shifting Horizons”, exploring youth and social change across Asia.
Shanshan has worked extensively behind the camera as a shooting producer-director and in the editing room, where she explores diverse narratives with a keen focus on social issues, dedicating herself to in-depth storytelling that sparks conversations and drives change.
Selected Filmography :
- From Aleppo to Melilla: Raed’s story (2015)
- Shanghai Tulip: Breaking China’s mental health taboo (2015)
- Invisible Lives (2016)
- Living the Chinese dream (2017)
- Art for Peace (2018)
- Louis’ Story: Child soldier to role model (2018)
- Stonewall 50: Where next for LGBTQ+ Lives? (2019)
- Taking on the Traffickers (2020)
- Fighting for Air (2022)
- Catching a Pervert (2023)
- Love Bound (2024)
