Unbeknownst to her family, Xinyi (28) is the lone Chinese comedian in Lisbon's English- speaking stand-up comedy scene. The film intertwines Xinyi's on-stage persona and her true self, using first-person narration to unveil the struggles of a female immigrant behind the laughter. The film offers a candid exploration of the intersectionality of her identity, shedding light on the nuanced challenges posed by her gender and ethnicity. Her narrative serves as a poignant reflection of the broader experiences shared by many immigrant women, providing a window into their resilience and the often-overlooked hurdles they confront on their journey to find belonging and acceptance.
Director‘s Statement: During my time studying in Europe, I gradually began to reflect on my own culture and explore how to tell stories about China and the Chinese people to European audiences. The lives of Chinese people in Europe have long been on the sidelines of social and cultural discussions. People's impressions of them often remain rooted in stereotypes or biased media portrayals. Despite Chinese immigrants and students being scattered throughout Europe, their lives and thoughts are rarely widely acknowledged by local societies. I began to ponder how, as a creator, I could use audiovisual art to convey this situation and reach a wider audience. During this period, I started to discover Chinese comedians in European countries. In my view, the essence of our creations is fundamentally the same, albeit with differences in the mediums of dissemination and artistic expression. When I met the protagonist, Xinyi, she was eager to share with me her experiences of trauma during her upbringing in China and the discrimination she faced in Portugal.I hoped to present a more comprehensive perspective on the thoughts and struggles of a Chinese woman living in Europe, hidden behind her comedic sketches. Xinyi's life in the film is separated, struggling, and undergoing reshaping. In a sense, she has gained freedom, but this freedom has plunged her into a state of incongruity due to the distance from escaping the confines of a patriarchal family and being ensnared in racial discrimination. She discovered that the freedom she thought she had gained was a product of cultural emptiness, and during the pandemic, she keenly felt the unrelenting pain of no longer being seen as an invisible entity. Can her performances truly challenge cultural biases, or conversely, reinforce stereotypes?
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Unbeknownst to her family, Xinyi (28) is the lone Chinese comedian in Lisbon's English- speaking stand-up comedy scene. The film intertwines Xinyi's on-stage persona and her true self, using first-person narration to unveil the struggles of a female immigrant behind the laughter. The film offers a candid exploration of the intersectionality of her identity, shedding light on the nuanced challenges posed by her gender and ethnicity. Her narrative serves as a poignant reflection of the broader experiences shared by many immigrant women, providing a window into their resilience and the often-overlooked hurdles they confront on their journey to find belonging and acceptance.