ABSOLUTELY NO SEXUAL FAVORS/JE PENSE À TOI

  • Director

    Tong Xie

  • Country, Year, Length

    France, 2023, 12:34

  • Category

    LGBTQIA+ Short

  • Format

    Digital

  • Festival Year

    2025

Synopsis

Tong, arriving in Paris one year before the Paris 2024 Olympic Games with only a suitcase, seeks refuge to let go of his past; through the people he meets, his spirit lingers and undergoes a transformation that remains.

In tribute to Qiu Miaojin, the Taiwanese queer novelist who fought for absolute love in Montmartre, Paris.

Film Screening & Ticket Information

When & Where to See this Film!

…COMING SOON…

Film Information

From the Director

Director Statement

In the summer of 2023, I visited Paris for the first time. While revisiting Qiu Miaojin’s (邱妙津) work—”Last Words from Montmartre/Dernières Lettres de Montmartre” (蒙馬特遺書), I felt the urge to engage in a cross-temporal dialogue with the emotions described in the book, discussing the possibilities of love, desire, and memory transcending geographical boundaries.

“Absolutely No Sexual Favors—je pense à toi/吾想汝顯 ” is a short film inspired by the Taiwanese novelist Qiu Miaojin and her works. It attempts to explore the unease, confusion, and obsession experienced by the body as it crosses the urban physiognomy as a nomad.

The original soundtrack was created with the support of IMEP Paris College of Music and the University of Melbourne, in memory of Qiu Miaojin’s legacy and the inspiration she has left from Taiwan and beyond.

Director Biography

Graduated from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, TONG XIE is a New York-based filmmaker and new media artist. His works often navigate the (in)visibility and in-betweenness of the marginalized group in their gendered and social manifestations.

Xie’s artistic practices interweave social commentary with documentary theory, experimental techniques, and new media to capture the rawness of urban physiognomy and its ephemeral associations. He is active in organizing and curating Sinophone Cinema screenings in New York. ABSOLUTELY NO SEXUAL FAVORS je pense à toi is his debut short film, featuring original music composed in Paris and Melbourne in tribute to the Taiwanese queer novelist Qiu Miaojin. He is currently working on his first feature film.

Credits

    • Tong Xie
      Director
    • Tong Xie
      Writer
    • Jocelyn Liu
      Producer
    • Niki Jiang
      Key Cast
      “MUI”
    • Tong Xie
      Key Cast
      “Tong “
    • Raymound Baur
      Key Cast
      “Antoine”
    • Baha Boutouila
      Key Cast
      “The Reader”
    • Izabela Zak
      Key Cast
      “Amélie Dubois”
    • Kai Chang
      Director of Photography
    • Qingyan Wu
      Executive Producer
    • Xiangqi Xie
      Executive Producer
    • Miya Zhang
      Assistant Director
    • Kexin Zhang
      Sound Mixer
    • Miya Zhang
      Sound Mixer
    • Tess Yan
      Sound Design
    • Kexin Zhang
      Sound Design
    • Laurent Hsia
      Colorist
    • Miya Zhang
      Dance Choreographer
    • Kai Sun
      Gaffer
    • Yihuan Gu
      Production Design
    • Yemo Wang
      Original Soundtrack
    • Louise Tiphagne
      Original Soundtrack
    • Jeanee Fujikawa
      Original Soundtrack