House of Enigma
Director：Slade Warnken and Ying Dai
Screenwriter：—
Cast：Xitlali Celesté, Augus Wang
Producer：David A. Holcombe
Cinematographer：Slade Warnken and Ying Dai
Running Time：11min12s
Region：China, USA
Year：2023
Language：Mandarin Chinese, English
Production Company：Soft Cage Films
SYNOPSIS
House of Enigma is a 10-minute short film exploring gender on an international scale. Using gender and artistic expression alike, two artists on opposite sides of the world explore what it means to exist as an enigma, something that can never be defined, only expressed.
Director Biography
<p>Slade Warnken (she/they) – Co-Director</p><p>Slade aka Sw33t is a musician and documentary filmmaker with a focus on how we express identity, desire and transformation through performance. Based in New Orleans, Slade’s true passion is creating spaces that encourage multi-disciplinary collaboration and House of Enigma was no different. Her goal was to create a film that brought together queer artists all over the world to try and describe the intangible feeling of finding a home in your body through performance and artistic expression.</p><p>Ying Dai (They/she) – Co-Director</p><p>Ying is a Chinese photographer, filmmaker, and a multi-disciplinary scholar. They are currently based in Chicago, IL and Madison, WI. Their work focuses on issues of gender, queerness, immigration, fat liberation, anti-imperialism, and BIPOC resistance and joy. Their creative motivations stem from a deep commitment to their communities and a fierce love for their friends. @yingggdai</p>
Director's Statement
House of Enigma is the transnational documentary project by filmmakers Ying Dai and Slade Warnken. The film explores the intricacy of drag and performance artist Xitlali Celesté (Chicago, USA) and dancer Yu’ang Wang (Shenyang, China) making sense of their relationship to gender-performance, artmaking, and imagination of the future. During the production process we fluidity became a central theme. As Xitlali explained to us, there is no one way to be trans or queer, we simply are. To be queer and trans is to be full of endless possibilities, and for Xitlali and Yu’ang, House of Enigma served as a way to show how art and performance allows them to transcend ideas of identity and to become an enigma. Opaque and explosive, their art becomes an armor that allows the softness and vulnerability of their excess of identity to flourish without fear of violence or rejection.
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