Chongyan Liu
Directing
Biography
Chongyan Liu is an artist-filmmaker born in Guizhou, China, who currently resides in Lille, France. After completing her studies at CAFA in Beijing, she pursued a master's degree at Beaux-Arts de Paris, and has now joined a two-year program at Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains. Her creative output spans multiple mediums, including documentary and fiction filmmaking, experimental moving image, painting, and sculpture. Chongyan is currently focused on exploring the intersection of video art and film. Her multidisciplinary approach to filmmaking seeks to redefine boundaries within the medium and challenge preconceived notions of the practice. Arriving in France at the age of 21, her works, nourished by her personal experiences and observations of social dynamics, serve as the foundations for experimentation and reflexivity. The feedback from this process of actualisation creates an echo in which the audience can identify a fragment of themselves; where they too have the chance to confront the latent trappings of yesteryear. Chongyan’s work has been showcased at numerous prestigious international film festivals, such as IDFA, Beijing International Short Film Festival, Seoul International Pride Film Festival, and Videoex.
Known For
When Philip invites his assistant's boyfriend, Harry, over for dinner under false pretences, an in-depth conversation on the nature of love leads to Philip revealing his true intentions and desires.
The Harryian Theory
A therapist at a Berlin university navigates delicate emotional terrain as she provides solace to a grieving student grappling with the suicide of a trans woman on campus.
After All
An intimate account of a highly toxic relationship: during a lengthy visit from her boyfriend’s mother, the filmmaker documents the arguments between mother and son.
Is There a Pine on the Mountain
In the middle of what would have otherwise been a banal evening, everything Céleste has been trying to hide comes to light.
Speak in a Whisper
In a remote village, a boy struggles under the suffocating grip of his dictatorial father. As he desperately seeks freedom, he soon realises that escape is not as simple as it seems.
The Apple Never Falls
A gesture of post-mortem cinema: spaces devoid of tangible life take on a spectral atmosphere, as though considered through the eyes of the departed. A spatial expedition through a deconstructed Berlin ensues, existential in its storytelling and political in its focus on an individual's trauma.