GAY CANNES MOVIE CAUSES STIR

Chinese director Lou Ye has disregarded his five year ban from filmmaking by producing the explicit film Spring Fever.

The film, which is eligible for Cannes most prestigious Palme d’Or award, revolves around a passionate affair between a married man and his more openly gay lover.

Spring Fever disregards the prudish standards set by the Chinese authorities, who see homosexuality and sexual obsession as essentially taboo subjects for the nation’s filmmakers.

“I hope that nothing will happen when I get back to China,” Lou told a press conference on Thursday, marking the film’s screening in Cannes. “I’m just a filmmaker. I always say: don’t be afraid of the cinema.”

Spring Fever is a two-hour tale of passion and seduction in twosomes and threesomes, with lengthy graphic scenes of gay sex, which was shot in secret in two months in Nanjing city with a hand-held camera.

“We were psychologically prepared to be stopped during the filming, but that never happened, and today here we are with the film and the cast, which after all is a good thing,” Lou said.

Lou is halfway through a five year ban set by Chinese censors after bringing his previous film, Summer Palace, to Cannes in 2006 without official approval. The film was also a steamy love tale set around the taboo subject of the 1989 pro-democracy Tiananmen protests.