Call Me By Your Name pulled from Chinese film festival

The film's subject matter seems to have something to do with it

Credit: Warner Bros. (Sony Pictures Classics)

Call Me By Your Name has been pulled by a film festival in China.

According to NewNowNext, Sony Pictures announced that the critically acclaimed gay drama starring Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer was dropped by a festival in Beijing on Monday.

However, they declined to give a reason for why the movie would no longer be shown.

The Luca Guagadnino-directed film was supposed to screen on March 16.

China's decision seems to reflect the country's "fickle relationship with LGBT themes in the media."

In China, homosexuality isn't illegal, but "abnormal sexual behaviours" have been banned which include homosexuality in TV and online media.

Violence and sexual content in movies are known to be long-censored in China.

Addicted - a popular Chinese web series portraying a gay couple in high school - was quickly removed in 2016.

But during the same year, Wang Chao's Seek McCartney - the first film with gay main characters - was approved for media consumption.

The confusion around Call Me By Your Name comes alongside this month's decision by Parliament to "end term limits for President Xi Jinping" to give control of "film, news and publishing to the Communist Party's publicity department."

"There is no clear policy on this issue, so we are always confused," Xin Ying, director of the Beijing LGBT Center, explained to The Japan Times.

Hopefully there is clearer direction for China's media soon.