Check Out Anna Chi’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Anna Chi.

Hi Anna, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Growing up, I never thought that one day I would speak English, live in America and have an “American” dream.

My family lived in a small town in Northern China. We didn’t have a TV and couldn’t afford to go see films. The only form of real entertainment that we had was my father’s little black radio. When my father turned the radio on, which was a special occurrence, I would be glued to it. One of the programs, thirty minutes daily at noon, was a podcast-style show where an actor would read a story from Chinese classical literature. For those thirty minutes, my mind traveled to imaginary places where I could meet the characters and I felt like I knew them. Then I would impatiently wait for the noon on the next day.

It surprised no one that in college I majored in Literature, dreaming one day I will be a writer. However, upon graduation, the Communist Party assigned me to a job as a film editor in Beijing.

Then an exciting opportunity arrived in the form of Kodak coming to China to introduce their film stock. Kodak offered a workshop for editors, and I was fortunate to be part of it. We were given a reel of film to re-edit without being told what it was. There were 25 editors and we all did our own editing. The reel was “The Crop Duster chasing Cary Grant” scene from “North By Northwest”. Imagine our shock after learning what the film was. Alfred Hitchcock was like a God for us and we had just re-edited his famous scene! The power of editing and visual storytelling ignited a fire within me. I wanted to become a director to tell my stories.

When I decided to leave China to come to the US I didn’t speak a word of English. But I managed to learn and work hard to get my MFA in directing from UCLA’s film school. Since then I’ve been telling stories through my independent films. Recently I just finished my latest feature film, “The Disappearance of Mrs. Wu”, which will be released in March 2023. I also just completed the 2021-2022 DGA Diversity Episodic Mentorship program.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I don’t believe there is a smooth road in anything that we want to do in our lives. Actually the more challenge we have in what we do, the more we will learn and improve. I came here in the 90’s there was very little conversation about diversity, inclusion, equality, representation, etc. I had written a quite few projects that I thought would be great for the entertainment industry because they were stories of minorities, women, people of color. But I had hard time to get them off the ground. That was one of the main reasons that I started to make my indie movies, because I didn’t want to wait for others to give me the permission to tell the kind of stories that I wanted to tell. Was the road difficult and hard? You bet! But I don’t regret my choices at all and I enjoyed making my indie movies very much. Whenever I feel disenchanted and disillusioned, I will tell myself that I am bringing otherwise untold stories to the screen and I am giving an underrepresented cast and crew a chance to show what they are capable of doing. If I have to list some of the struggles, I would say there’s never enough support for indie filmmakers, there’s never enough money and time. But these struggles are not uniquely just for me. All indie filmmakers are heroes making their movies with these kinds of struggles.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a Chinese-born immigrant writer, director and producer whose wide-ranging career has spanned two continents and more than two decades.

As a director, I have directed narrative features including “Blindness”, “Dim Sum Funeral”,“Cicada Summer”, the animated feature “The Boxcar Children: Surprise Island” and short films “Swimming” and “Tales of Legends”. I have just finished my latest narrative feature “The Disappearance of Mrs. Wu” that Bob Berney’s Picturehouse has picked it up for sales/distribution that will be released in March 2023.

My most recent working experience includes working on a new television series, “American Born Chinese”, for Disney + as the show’s Mandarin consultant working with directors like Destin Cretton, Lucy Liu, Kelvin Yu and Erin O’Malley.

As a producer, I have put together Chinese-U.S. co-financing and coproducing projects including the 2020 IMAX documentary “Asteroid Hunter” and the 2018 Sundance Audience Award-winning dramatic feature Burden, staring Forest Whitaker and Garrett Hedlund.

As a writer, my writing credits include scripts for Miramax, John Woo’s Lion Rock Productions, Zoom Hunt International Productions (Taiwan) and Hsu Feng’s Tomson Films (Hong Kong).

In addition to being a filmmaker, I am an adjunct professor teaching screenwriting at ArtCenter College of Design.

I love directing! That’s something that I can never get enough of. I am proud of myself for not giving up on telling stories for women, for the minorities, for the immigrants. What set me apart is my unique upbringing in mainland China that gives me different perspectives and fresh eyes when looking at stories that involve diversity, race, equality, etc. As an immigrant, I didn’t come to this country until I was in my late 20s, I do believe that I can bring new voices and new outlooks and new possibilities to storytelling.

Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
Don’t give up no matter how hard, how difficult, how hopeless, how bleak it might seem at times. Try to find a way to make it happen for yourself. Don’t wait for others to give you the permission. One advice that I would give to whoever wants to get into filmmaking is to just start making it! With the technology so advanced right now it is totally possible to make a short film using a smartphone. However, I would also strongly advise the new filmmakers to have a great script before they start. Without a good script, it’s almost impossible to make a good film!

Another thing I would say is to learn how to utilize the opportunities that are out there to help you get noticed, to make connections. After I graduated from UCLA all I thought was how to get my first feature made (that’s what I learned in China), I didn’t know that I could make a short film, take it to festivals, and apply to different programs that would help me to get my first feature made. I really wish I knew! I really wish someone has told me that!

Contact info:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anna.chi.714
• Website: https://bigllamastudio.com

Image Credits
Camille Patrao, Richard Ren, Lee Mariano, Tony Cutrono