Presented by UHeights Theatre Alliance Member Yun Theatre on September 8 at 6:20 PM in The Auditorium at UHeights. Doors open at 6:00 PM. English and Chinese subtitles will be provided. Consecutive interpretation will be available during the talkback session.
Following the documentary, there will be a talkback with Xiaodi and Director Junmi Chen discussing the realities of transgender life and the fight against “conversion therapy” institutions in China.
Trigger Warning: violence, conversion therapy, unlawful imprisonment. The "Internet addiction school” depicted in the documentary may evoke parallels with the Canadian Indian residential school system and concentration camps.
More about the film and talkback: On the 17th birthday of Huang Xiaodi, a transgender girl from China, the whole family gathered to celebrate her birthday. After dinner, her parents asked her to get in the car and take her to buy a birthday present. However, what awaited her was not the store but an "Internet addiction school" on Gele Mountain in Chongqing, China.
They believed this school would convert Xiaodi and make her a "normal" boy. Trapped in a private prison, Xiaodi learned to give in. In the face of violence and humiliation, she suffered disgrace to win the trust of instructors. Under her patience, a chance to escape finally came.
This is the story told in the Documentary Xiaodi. SeaUni, a Chinese diaspora queer and trans-feminist collective based in Seattle, in collaboration with Yun Theatre, will present the documentary Xiaodi.
As the Director notes, “(We) try our best to turn the abstract so-called 'conversion therapy' into a unique experience through film, which makes people feel the insult to personality and the destruction of dignity. At the same time, we reviewed Xiaodi's personal growth history and family memories to help the audience understand the experience and growth process of a transgender person”.