Today we’d like to introduce you to Mona Mengnan Chu.
Hi Mona Mengnan, 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?
I began as a storyteller in China, first as a journalist, then as a writer, director, and creative executive for one of the country’s most influential production companies. But the more I worked in mass media, the more I found myself drawn to the quieter, more fragile spaces that couldn’t be captured by conventional formats, the unsaid, the unresolved, the intimately human.
That instinct eventually led me to filmmaking, and later to New York, where I earned my MFA in Film at Columbia University. I’m also an alumna of the La Fémis Producing Atelier, where I deepened my interest in international co-productions and cross-cultural storytelling. I now teach nonfiction filmmaking at Columbia, guiding students through the process of crafting stories that live between fact and imagination, memory and image.
Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to be part of producing films that have been selected by leading international festivals, including Cannes, Locarno, Tribeca, and Shanghai International Film Festival. These experiences have deepened my belief in the quiet power of stories that cross borders and defy categories.
I founded 5 REVEURS FILM to further explore that in-between space, where fiction and documentary collide, where identity is fluid, and where the personal becomes political. Through this company, I develop and produce independent film and TV projects across languages and continents, often grounded in themes of migration, family, and cultural memory.
For me, storytelling is not just about representation, but about reinvention of self, of structure, of how we listen and how we see. And that’s the space I continue to build from.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
One of the biggest challenges has been learning to navigate between systems, languages, and expectations. Moving from China to the U.S., I found myself constantly translating, not just words, but ways of thinking, working, and feeling. As an immigrant artist, there’s always the invisible labor of proving your value in unfamiliar spaces.
Another ongoing challenge is choosing the slow path in a fast world. I’ve turned down commercial opportunities to protect a vision that isn’t always easy to explain, work that doesn’t fit neatly into genre or format, but insists on nuance, silence, and emotional ambiguity. That comes with risk, and sometimes, with doubt.
But I’ve come to see those struggles as part of the form itself. The friction, the uncertainty, they’ve sharpened my voice and clarified what I stand for. The road hasn’t been easy, but it’s led me closer to the kind of stories I want to tell and the kind of artist I’m becoming.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m a filmmaker, producer, and educator working across fiction and non-fiction. My work often explores themes of memory, migration, family, and the quiet tension between cultures, stories that don’t scream for attention, but linger.
What I’m most drawn to, and what I’ve become known for, is the space between categories. I often blur documentary with narrative, fact with impression, text with silence. I’m interested in the moments that resist resolution, in images that leave room to breathe.
Through my company, 5 RÊVEURS FILM, I develop and produce independent projects that reflect hybrid identities and cross-cultural experiences. Many of the works I’ve been involved in have screened at major international festivals, which has been an incredible honor. But what I’m most proud of is the integrity of the process, staying true to a vision that isn’t always easy to define, but always deeply felt.
What sets me apart is my refusal to rush the work. I listen closely to people, to spaces, to what’s not being said, and I try to make films that do the same.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I was born into a family of artists and writers, so I grew up surrounded by stories, images, and sound. It felt natural to be drawn to music, photography, and painting, not just as hobbies, but as ways of sensing and translating the world around me. Each form taught me something different: music gave me rhythm and intuition, painting gave me stillness and shape, and photography taught me to wait, to see before naming.
I was also a quiet, observant child, the kind who sat at the edges of gatherings, listening more than speaking, watching people’s gestures, collecting the fragments of what wasn’t said. I think I started telling stories before I knew I was doing it, trying to stitch meaning out of silence, light, and memory.
Film eventually became the form that could hold all of those languages together. Looking back, I don’t think I chose storytelling; I think it chose me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.5reveursfilm.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/monaachuu/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mengnanchu
Image Credits
Eurica Yu; Pete Quandt
