Interview: Alexandra Qin – Thirstygirl (Short)

In our recently published Top 10 short films of 2024 Sundance Film Festival, we identified Thirstygirl – an intimate, candid, taboo-free ten-minute travelogue and character study about the triggers behind addiction (made impossibly more complicated in the digi age) and the true pact of sisterhood featuring two mixed-race Asian-American siblings as our favorite from the 53 selected shorts that cracked the line-up. A filmmaker with a diverse cultural background, New York-based Alexandra Qin avoids a facile exploration of the condition and addiction drama trappings — making for a refreshing take on the possible ramifications of acting on that impulse.

In our interview, Alexandra is forthcoming and fully transparent about her proximity to the material (this extends to the eventual feature) and there is plenty to admire in how she broached the subject and confectioned a feature length project into this alluring short. Despite a professional background far removed from cinema (she nonetheless had a clear passion for the form) we discussed how the this uncensored, raw and thought-provoking debut (that was surprisingly rejected by a slew of festivals before receiving a yes from Sundance programmers) that came about.