The international TEDDY Jury 2016: Xiaogang Wei
Channel: TEDDY AWARD
Date: 2016-02-13

Xiaogang Wei was born and raised in Xinjiang, China. He was trained as an actor at the drama department of the Xinjiang Arts Institute in Urumqi and at the Shanghai Drama Academy. Having a passion for community work and a drive to contribute to social change, Xiaogang has continually searched for meaningful ways to share his drama skills with others and to use them in socially relevant ways. After finishing his studies, he has been volunteered for a few NGOs based in Beijing, and has been a consultant for UNICEF since 2005.

During recent years he started to engage himself on the production side of various film- and other productions benefiting different social movements in China. In 2007, he founded the LGBT webcast "Queer Comrades", for which he hosted and directed more than 50 half-hour episodes. Some of his recent directing feats include "Cures that Kill" (Queer Comrades, 2011), a documentary focusing on the "curing homosexuality" practices in China, and "Strong" (Queer Comrades, 2012), a documentary focusing on bullying faced by LGBT students. Since 2010, he's the executive director of the NGO Beijing Gender Health Education Institute (BGHEI) which houses the webcast "Queer Comrades".  Founded in 2002, it constitutes one of the first Chinese NGOs to focus on issues of gender, sexuality and sexual health, thus fulfilling a pioneering role in Chinese society. Together with the BGHEI, he launched a series of groundbreaking events in China, including the "China AIDS Walk", the "China Rainbow Awards" and the "China LGBT Community Leader Conference". Xiaogang is the Co-curator of the "Beijing Queer Film Festival" and a board member of the "Beijing LGBT Centre".