China’s resistance to gay relationships and surrogate births, seen through a filmmaker’s own family
- The documentarian Hao Wu tells a very personal story in All in My Family
- ‘I wanted to show the challenges for gay people of Chinese descent, what kind of generational barriers they have to negotiate,’ he says
Chinese documentarian Hao Wu’s latest film, All in My Family, focuses on Chinese family tradition, social expectations, gay relationships and children born using surrogacy through an extremely personal lens.
The 40-minute film – Wu’s fourth and set for release on streaming service Netflix this Friday – was shot over a series of Lunar New Year holidays on periodic trips back to Chengdu from New York, where he settled 20 years ago.
As the film develops, we watch him anguish and strategise over when and how to tell his grandfather that he’s gay, married to his Chinese-American husband Eric and has two children, a boy and a girl born through surrogacy.
“I wanted to show the challenges for gay people of Chinese descent, what kind of cultural and generational barriers and differences they have to negotiate in order to build a family of their own,” Wu said.
This is the first time Wu has turned the camera on himself and the view is close and intimate. He uses a handheld camera, editing and special effects are limited, and many of the scenes are raw.