Stijn Deklerck

After finishing my degree in Legal Anthropology in Belgium, I moved to China in 2000 to study Chinese language and the Chinese legal system. I proceeded to do research on China’s civil society, engaging in ethnographic fieldwork at various grass-roots organizations.

During recent years I've been using my research-, fieldwork- and legal skills to produce socially engaging and culturally relevant films. I produced “Living Positive”(Isolda Morillo, 2005), a docudrama on HIV/AIDS used throughout China for educational purposes, and directed several educational films for the Flemish Support Centre for Basic Adult Education. I also produced the documentary “I Want to Grow Old in China” (Smoke Signal Projects, 2008).

I currently live in Beijing, where I'm working as the producer of “Queer Comrades”, China’s only independent long-running LGBT webcast. Queer Comrades has a mission to document queer culture in all its aspects in order to raise public awareness on LGBT matters and was started up in 2007.