The Life
In the heart of Flushing, Queens, a Chinese woman balancing sex work and romantic relationships through lies, until a marriage proposal forces her to confront what freedom truly means to her.
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Ningyi SunDirector2023 Eat Bitter - documentary feature
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Ningyi SunWriter2023 Eat Bitter - documentary feature
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Sol YeProducer2024 ACROSS THE WATERS - short narrative; 2023 THE LAST YEAR OF DARKNESS - documentary feature; 2024 SOME RAIN MUST FALL - narrative feature
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Joyce Yueyi XingProducer
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Hansen LinProducer
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Wenyi WeiKey Cast"Vivian"
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Project Type:Short
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Runtime:15 minutes
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Completion Date:December 19, 2024
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Production Budget:35,000 USD
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Country of Origin:United States, United States
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Country of Filming:United States, United States
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Language:English, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish
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Shooting Format:Digital
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Aspect Ratio:16:9
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:No
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Student Project:No
Film writer/director, Ningyi Sun is a Chinese filmmaker based in New York and has received grants from Sundance, Hot Docs Blue Ice, Ford Foundation, IDFA Bertha Fund, and Chicken & Egg Pictures. Her debut documentary feature, 'Eat Bitter,' premiered at CPH:DOX in 2023, has been screened in 50+ film festivals worldwide, winning The Best Documentary Feature at the Visioni dal Mondo International Documentary Festival and The Best Cinematography at SIMA Awards 2024. It also received a “Special Mention” at the Encounters South African International Documentary Festival. Ningyi won the award of Emerging Documentary Director at 47th Asian American International Film Festival. The film has been distributed to BBC and American Airlines.
Currently, Ningyi is writing and directing her first narrative feature A.M.P. and completed a proof-of-concept short film, which will start its festival circuit in spring 2025. The feature script was a semi-finalist in the Athena Film Festival Writers Lab and advanced for the second round of consideration for the 2025 Sundance Development Track.
Prior to filmmaking, Ningyi worked with the United Nations peace operation in the Central African Republic.
When I first encountered Song Yang's story in The New York Times, I was struck by her defiance. On November 27, 2017, Song Yang, one of the top sex workers on 40th Road in Flushing, Queens, fell from the fourth floor of a building during a police sting operation, dying the next day, just two weeks before she was scheduled to return home. The New York Times article titled "The Case of Jane Doe Ponytail" captured only a small part of her life, leaving me with a deep sense of unfinished business.
As an immigrant who has lived in Brazil, Singapore, the Central African Republic, and now the United States, I found myself drawn to Song Yang’s story. We didn’t escape crisis—we sought self-actualization and a place to call home. Her tragic death highlighted the struggles of immigrant women, caught between ambition, survival, and a harsh system that offers little mercy.
In June 2022, I traveled to Xinbin County in northeastern China to meet Song Yang's family, where her brother entrusted me with her life story rights. This allowed me to understand her as a full person beyond her profession.
A.M.P., my feature-length project, explores the lives of immigrant women in the sex trade, navigating ambition and the American dream. THE LIFE, a proof-of-concept short film, focuses on one of the protagonists—a Chinese woman in Flushing who juggles love, work, and lies until forced to confront her true desires. While THE LIFE serves as a background story to A.M.P., it highlights the internal struggles and desires of immigrant women caught in a similar world.
Through A.M.P. and THE LIFE, I hope to honor Song Yang’s memory and give voice to immigrant women’s stories. These films explore themes of survival, ambition, and the complexities of sex work—challenging simplistic narratives and showing the humanity behind the headlines.