Love and Death in Montmartre

It’s difficult to believe, in some ways, that the world could have changed so much in just a couple of decades. Qiu Miao Jin gained a cult following and widespread acclaim as an openly gay, defiantly lesbian writer in the early ‘90s, but sadly took her own life in Paris at the age of 26 in 1995. Hong Kong director Evans Chan expands his 2017 documentary, which aired as part of a TV series celebrating Sinophone writers, and though he claimed not to have been much interested in Qiu as a personality, explores her life, love, and legacy from the perspective of a Taiwan which has now become the first Asian nation to legalise same-sex marriage.