Earlier this month, Jeremy Tianyu Chi’s short film Ice Cream, Ice Queen took home the Best Short Film award at the International Queer & Migrant Film Festival in Amsterdam—along with a trophy that, in fitting queer fashion, happened to be an iconic chrome butt plug. But the honor was more than just a cheeky flourish. Jeremy’s intimate, atmospheric short has resonated across borders, with audiences praising its emotional subtlety and the rare tenderness with which it treats connection, queerness, and cultural dissonance.
Shot in New York, the film explores an unlikely encounter between two immigrant women on a cold winter’s night. What begins as small talk deepens into a delicate emotional exchange—one where what’s left unsaid speaks louder than dialogue. “It’s a story about two people who are both lonely in different ways,” says Jeremy.
The film screened at Amsterdam’s iconic LAB111 cinema, a favorite among indie film lovers. It was curated by Berlin-based Chinese filmmaker and European Film Academy member Popo Fan. One audience member later wrote to Jeremy: “The gentle sadness and also cultural gaps you depicted were so sensitively beautiful.”
The film leans into language not just as a tool, but as both a barrier and an intimacy. One character speaks Korean, the other Mandarin, and their conversations often teeter between clarity and misfire. “After the Amsterdam screening, this Chinese girl messaged me,” Jeremy recalls. “She said she really loved the film and recommended it to her friends, but also felt a little sad because most of the Dutch audience couldn’t fully grasp the emotion and nuance in the lead actress’s Chinese lines. And I told her, that’s actually part of what the film’s about: the inability to fully communicate between languages.”
As the supervising editor and sound designer, Jeremy didn’t shy away from those moments. He let the untranslated language live in its own emotional rhythm, shaping scenes around silence and hesitation. A moment that stood out was when Annie, the younger woman, nervously asks, “Does it make you feel gross (that I am a lesbian)?” and Rosemary, the older woman, replies, “What is… gross?” It’s awkward, sincere, and surprisingly funny. And the audience laughed.
To Jeremy, Ice Cream, Ice Queen feels particularly personal. “It was inspired by a time when I was having late-night calls with my mom almost every other day,” he says. “I think I wrote two versions of us into the film without realizing it.” The result is a quiet film that pulses with restrained intimacy, held together by Jeremy’s precise editing and sonic attention.
“If someone walks away feeling less alone in their own strangeness,” he adds, “that’s really all that matters to me.”
Ice Cream, Ice Queen will continue its festival run this year, with upcoming screenings across Asia and North America.
