Read an introduction to Qiu's work here.

This vibrant portrait of a trans performer who styles themself “Bilan de Linphel” (birth name Fan Qihui) is at the same time personally intimate and exhilaratingly expansive. It was filmed by Qiu Jiongjiong over a couple of days of interviews, plus several weeks recording their stage shows in Beijing. Episodes of confessional autobiography alternate with magnificently searing, soulful performances of torch-song standards. A tailor by trade, Fan is no lip-syncing “impersonator”: kohl-eyed, bearing a magnificent curly wig, they belt out cynical, idealistic, broken-hearted, proudly defiant lyrics of jazzy numbers with a rawly expressive voice and an authority, a command of the stage that is awe-inspiring.  

Interspersed are Fan’s sometimes angry, sometimes tearful, occasionally self-destructive, always bitterly ironic tales of being a queer person in contemporary China. Fan flourished performing their various identities for peril and pleasure. This is life as a knockout performance: resplendent and ultimately tragic. Description by Shelly Kraicer.