Sunken Plum

A trans woman working in a cabaret in Chengdu receives the unexpected news of her mother’s death, from whom she had long been estranged. Regarded by her family as the only “son,” she is compelled to return to her hometown to arrange the funeral.

Back in her village, in a rural area of Sichuan, she is forced to conceal her identity from neighbors and relatives, confronting the weight of tradition, social rejection, and a deeply unresolved emotional wound.

Sunken Plum originates from the impact of several videos circulated on social media—later censored—that exposed violence against transgender women in China. Drawing from this material, the directors construct a restrained fiction that addresses social exclusion, identity conflict, and the tension between tradition and diversity.

The film forms the third and final part of the Chengdu Invisible trilogy, alongside Ni Jing: Thou Shalt Not Steal (2013) and Floating Melon (2015), a body of work shot in Sichuan and spoken in Southwestern Mandarin that portrays marginalized and often unseen realities of contemporary Chinese society.

Since its premiere, the short film has screened in more than fifty countries and been programmed at over one hundred and fifty international festivals and showcases, establishing itself as a key work within social and human rights cinema.