Rising Stars: Meet Shuyue Su

Today we’d like to introduce you to Shuyue Su.

Hi Shuyue, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I am a writer/director from Lanzhou, China. I am currently a 2nd year directing fellow at American Film Institute Conservatory and a recent graduate of UC San Diego with a BA in Visual Arts Media focusing on film production. Coming from a video art background, my works mix experimental and narrative storytelling and often focus on women’s social issues through a combination of surrealism and realism. My AFI thesis is a female empowerment short film that sets in China which I intend to open up more conversations about the potential for feminism and liberation.

I grew up listening to bedtime stories and reading fairy tales. I have always enjoyed seeing the world when I closed my eyes while listening or reading, everything becomes tangible in the imagination and I always felt closely connected to that fantasy world. However, in real world, I was bad at communication with words. I always feel isolated and unable to fit into any groups, so I started to put myself into journals, novels, and essays… later I even escaped into my fantasy world that has expanded with watching Animes, TV and Movies.

Once I realized verbal communication is limited in any kind of social situation, video art became more as a savior for my personal expression. Luckily, I have found myself and my friends through this media which enlightened me creating a unique language to communicate to the world. Being a director, creating “fantasy” world in movies/tvs with friends and people who understand the limitation in real world, allow myself to preserve the innocence within humanity and create a bridge to challenge all kinds of boundaries in modern society.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My journey to become a filmmaker is wild and fun. During my undergraduate, I was admitted to the college under one of the most challenging major – Neuroscience and Physiology. Later while attending all the classes, I realized my fantasy of being a cool doctor or a pharmacist is too naive with all the lab and restricted work ethic. Therefore I transferred major to Visual Arts, Media where I learned all kinds of entry-level skills to film production, which ultimately helped me to understand my passion to pursue directing.

The diverse background helps me to keep a broad perspective for storytelling but also makes it hard to get into the industry right away without a clear focus to begin with. The lesson is definitely to keep learning while making and to treat every challenge as opportunity, even to turn life difficulty into treasure for recreating authentic experiences in making movies.

As a normal average person who spent a long time believing myself as something special and extraordinary, now having an opened perspective is what value the most to me in my works, I wish to tell all the ordinary life stories with extraordinary techniques to help more people see the beauty in normal life.

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?
From video art background, I gave myself the name SSYWASDREAMING to make movies that can keep stories alive in an alternative world. Going through a phase in freelance editing, I came to realize the need for being the writer/director to recreate the stories in my head.

I have found my passion on telling Chinese female stories about identity and freedom with the technique to create a surreal reality through my education here in the United States.

My trilingual short film 「Expression 」is the finalist in 2021 ROMA SHORT FILM FESTIVAL and 2021 NEW WAVE SHORT FILM FESTIVAL. It has set my visual tone to create the world existing between reality and fantasy in my storytelling.

What I am most proud of is one of the short films RUNRUN I shot in my first year at AFI. It’s a story centering around two young Chinese boys about loss and friendship. This film helped me establish the ability to film Asian/Chinese people in Los Angeles and form the community for people like myself to pursue the cinema dream.

I’m always passionate about telling Chinese female stories about identity and freedom with the technique to create a surreal reality.

So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
I am still in production for my the thesis film, our team can use as much as help from donations. I am also looking for a development collaborator and financing for my mystery romance feature film.

I am super interested in music industry, therefore any opportunity to step foot into music videos industry will be helpful.

I am also available for freelance positions as Assistant Director, Script Supervisor and Casting Director.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ssywasdreaming.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ss._______.y/ 

Image Credits
Xiangyu Dong