This Girl Blinks

It's a vivid character portrait about this goofy jewelry maker who lives in Brooklyn that hand-making one of the most unusual jewelry in New York City. Behind every single piece of her work, is the childhood trauma that still haunts her now and then.

Lifei Diao is a Chinese documentary director, cinematographer, and editor based in China and the US. In 2015 she began to work as a documentary film editor, collaborating with independent filmmakers in China and telling stories about the struggle of art school students. She worked as a volunteer from Africa to the Middle East for nearly two years. The experiences brought her fresh and unique perspective into her film projects. Lifei holds a BA from Nanjing University of Arts in Music Directing in China and an MFA in Social Documentary Film at the School of Visual Arts in New York. During her time at SVA, her documentary short This Girl Blinks'' was screened at DOC NYC in 2017. Later on, she was also awarded the winner of the thesis production grant from SVA for her first feature-length documentary Years Gone By, a story about two LGBT elders facing eviction from their only home in the West Village. Lifei has worked as a one-woman-band for this film from January