My favorite film of the Berlinale was Queens of the Qing Dynasty, Ashley McKenzie’s ambitious and otherworldly fantasia about a “queer friendship romance” between a suicidal young woman and a Chinese immigrant she meets while hospitalized. Inspired by two teenagers she befriended during the casting of her previous feature, Werewolf (2016), McKenzie first sketched out the central character, Star (Sarah Walker), whose everyday life is mediated by endless negotiations with social workers, doctors, guardians, landlords and the various bureaucracies that employ them. Star is aging out of child protective services and has been deemed unfit to live independently, so as […]
by Darren Hughes on Mar 22, 2022