Madame

This vibrant portrait of trans performer ‘Bilan de Linphel’ (birth name Fan Qihui) is both intimate and exhilaratingly expansive. Filmed by Qiu over a couple of days of interviews, plus several weeks recording their stage shows in Beijing, the film alternates episodes of confessional autobiography with magnificent queer performances of torch-song standards. A tailor by trade, Fan belts out the cynical, broken-hearted, yet proudly defiant lyrics of jazzy numbers with a raw, expressive voice and an awe-inspiring command of the stage. Interspersed are Fan’s angry, tearful, or bitterly ironic tales of being a queer person in contemporary China.