Cui Zi'en

Cui Zi'en (Chinese: 崔子恩; pinyin: Cuī Zǐ'ēn), born 1958, in Harbin in the People's Republic of China, is a film director, producer, film scholar, screenwriter, novelist and an outspoken LGBT activist based in Beijing. He graduated from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences with an MA in literature and now is an associate professor at the Film Research Institute of the Beijing Film Academy.

Cui Zi'en is one of the avant-garde DV makers in Chinese underground film. He has published nine novels in China and Hong Kong, one of which, Uncle's Past, won the 2001 Radio Literature Award in Germany. In the same year, he founded the Beijing Queer Film Festival, the first LGBT film festival in mainland China. He is also the author of books on criticism and theory, as well as a columnist for magazines.

In 2002, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) presented the Felipa Award to Cui Zi'en. Cui brought issues of same-sex love into Chinese culture and public awareness, with a prolific crop of critically acclaimed articles, lectures, books, and films, including the first gay novel in modern China. Despite it being banned in mainland China, the novel is still available through unofficial channels.