XIONA
film director / content producer
Xiona Li is a Chinese trans-feminine filmmaker based between London and Beijing. Her work explores gender, identity, and intersectionality, often centering East Asian and queer experiences. She is the creator of Friction, an evolving series that documents transgender lives and resistance in China. Her works include Friction (2024), The Artist (2021), and Tropical Night (2021).
Xiona’s filmmaking blends documentary with experimental techniques, using AI, 3D conceptual imagery, and philosophical inquiry to create nuanced, embodied narratives. Through her practice, she seeks to challenge dominant forms of representation and open up new visual languages for complex identities.
Work Hightlights
Documentary on WAKE UP
An avant-garde queer performance merging fine art, fashion, and ritual in a historic church setting.
The fusion of queer art and the mystical ambience of the ancient church offers the audience a visual and sensory feast that transcends time and cultural boundaries. Fluid gender, redefined identity, and the collision of tradition and modernity come together to craft an unrepeatable, epic artistic narrative.
Wake Up - Short Documentary Trailer
FRICTION (2024) Short Documentary
an experimental exploring the social erasure and segregation of trans identities using mannequin symbolism and AI generated imageries. Reveal the ‘friction’ in body conceptualization.
Features Yuqi Zhang, a closeted transgender woman in her 30s living in mainland China, she faces a harrowing choice: risk social abandonment by embracing her true self or endure the mental strain of remaining invisible to stay safe.
Friction - Short Documentary Trailer
A DATE WITH THE OCEAN (2024) Short Documentary
The ocean has been trying to communicate its pain for years, through rising tides, dwindling fish stocks, and coral bleaching; but humanity hasn’t always listened.
‘A Date with the Ocean’ is an unscripted experiment that prompts its participants to consider how they could forge a happy, harmonious and symbiotic relationship with the Ocean.
A Date with the Ocean - Experimental Doc Short
THE ARTIST (2021) Narrative Feature
A visually arresting 59-minute film that delves into the psyche of Peter, a struggling artist whose obsession with his craft leads him down a dark and surreal path.
Disillusioned artist discovers a mysterious wound that bleeds the perfect medium for his paintings, driving him into a haunting spiral of ambition, obsession, and the ultimate price of artistic genius.
The Artist - Teaser Trailer
TROPICAL NIGHT (2021) Short Film
A high school girl in Asia whose father left the family at her early age is struggling financially with her mother, she gains empowerment and new directions from a coincidental encounter with an online sex-cam girl.
Tropical Night - Short Film
Filmography and More Details
Fritcion
short documentary (2024)
Tropical Night
drama short film (2021)
The Artist
drama feature (2021)
White Piano
dreama feature film (2017)
Under the Streetlight
drama short film (2016)
A Date with the Ocean
experimental short (2024)
Screenings & Exhibitions
Friction
Muchroom, Queer Bar
Chengdu, China
22nd March 2025
Friction
London College of Communication,
London, UK
4th December 2024
London College of Communication, Earth Week Exhibition,
London, UK
A Date with the Ocean
16th - 23rd April 2024
Night-Shinning White
Soul Art Centre, 798 Art Zone
Beijing, China
15th July 2023
White Piano
Green Mountain Cafe Premiere
Beijing, China
31st Dec 2017