A gay and lesbian film festival due to be held at the weekend at Beijing University was forced to change venue when campus officials refused to allow the event to go ahead, organisers said.

"It's because of the festival's subject matter," Yang Yang, head of the Beijing gay cinema festival's organising committee said.

Organisers had told campus officials the festival was an AIDS and sexual health event, for fear that authorities would ban it if they knew it was screening gay cinema.

"We didn't tell them it was a gay film festival... because we were convinced that if we had told them what it was about they would never have agreed to it," Yang said.

The festival instead went ahead at a disused factory used by artists.

Five documentaries and four feature-length Chinese films were on the bill along with two Hong Kong movies and one from Taiwan.

Editor: Wing