“Medusa”: Breaking the Silence

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Medusa. Directed by Tingxue (Corinna) Du (China, 2025)

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A woman, a police officer, asks Xia Xue, seated across the desk, if she is ready to give her statement. Xia Xue nods, resolute, and says she is. What will she say? This scene opens Medusa, a short film by Chinese director Tingxue (Corinna) Du, which turns toward the past to trace a traumatic event and its aftermath: the sexual assault the protagonist endured at the hands of someone close to her.

What immediately stands out in Medusa is its drive to search and to break silence. The film follows Xia Xue’s attempt to give form to something that once exceeded any possibility of being named. Du’s gaze, shaped by her interest in psychology and experimental cinema, moves through everyday spaces: a bathroom, a party, a dimly lit room. Within these settings, silence takes the place of the unspeakable. Interwoven with these scenes are fragments of ancient texts about Medusa, echoing voices such as Ovid and Hesiod against a black background. These references connect a personal story to a broader cultural memory. Medusa emerges as a symbol of transformation, an image of how violence reshapes a life, how the world can become a hostile terrain, and yet still allow a gaze capable of confronting it.

The short film explores guilt as a presence that settles into the body and reveals itself through silent gestures, forms of self harm, and the difficulty of moving beyond trauma. At the same time, it opens a space for friendship, understood as mutual recognition, as a shared gesture that makes it possible to rebuild a connection with the world. In the encounter between two women, something shifts. The possibility of speaking, of acting, of interrupting the cycle begins to take shape.

A political dimension runs quietly beneath the surface. Violence appears within the intimate sphere, in places that should offer safety. The film observes the slow and often contradictory process through which a voice is rebuilt and finds its place. In the end, Xia Xue chooses to tattoo a medusa onto her body. In these final moments, it is impossible not to return to the young woman from the opening scene, seated before the police officer, and to recognize the silent transformation that has altered her gaze and marked her skin.

Ciclos Shorts Fest

2026

Biography of the Director – Tingxue (Corinna) Du

Tingxue (Corinna) Du is an aspiring filmmaker drawn to the nuanced depths of the human psyche. A recent graduate of University College London (UCL) in the United Kingdom, she developed a fascination with the power of visual storytelling to explore complex emotional landscapes. Her artistic inclinations are deeply rooted in the realm of psychological thrillers and experimental cinema.