ROUGE

Hong Kong-born Stanley Kwan (1957) began his filmmaking career at Television Broadcasts Limited in Hong Kong, working closely with many of the country’s young New Wave directors. As one of the few openly gay directors in Asia, Kwan’s films often revolve around aspects of gender and sexuality as portrayed in his films Rouge, Full Moon in New York, and Center Stage. Kwan himself came out as a gay man in his 1996 documentary, Yang ± Yin, which explores the history of Chinese-language film through the prism of gender roles and sexuality. Kwan’s critically acclaimed Rouge won Best Film and Best Director honors at the 1988 Hong Kong Film Awards, while in 2001, he won the Best Director award at the prestigious Golden Horse Film Festival for his film Lan Yu. His exquisitely stylized, richly emotional films employ the conventions of melodrama with a rare sensitivity and sincerity. Empathetically attuned to the longings and struggles of women, awash in gorgeous mise-en-scène, his works entwine majestic melancholy with complex reflections on history, society, and politics.