Xiaolu Wang
BIO: Xiaolu Wang is a self-taught filmmaker and translator from the Hui Muslim Autonomous Region of China. Her first short film, Dumpling, has been screened at local and international film festivals, as well as friend's food pop-ups. She contributed translations to journals including 单读, onlimbo, and Cinephila. She received the 2019 Jerome Film and Media grant for her upcoming documentary, The Subversive Sirens. She lives in Minneapolis with two cats who sleep on separate couches.
ABOUT THIS FILM: Between unsatisfying phone calls, between every Chinese holidays I grew up with but no longer remember to celebrate, between the haunting hours of COVID solitude, between the repetitive motions of life, between new moons and full moons, between catching up on World Cinema, between autobiographies and suicidal notes, between Bryant Ave and 33rd, between cat naps, between uprisings and trials, between the smell of incenses, you might find the grief in my lungs, breathing in and breathing out. This is a film in honor of my grandmother, who is breathing with me in the spirit world and patiently waiting for me to return.
JOHN VANG
BIO: John is a Hmong Twin Cities filmmaker who's been experimenting with different styles of filmmaking since his high school days on Youtube. In his free time, he loves co-op survival video games, aquascaping fish tanks, and backpacking mountains. All of which he tries to turn into stories, too. Everything has a story.
ABOUT THIS FILM: A retired grandfather endures the hardships of Covid 19 quarantine until the day he can once again reunite with his children and grandchildren.
KAZUA Melissa vang
BIO: Kazua Melissa Vang (She/Her/Hers) is a Hmong American filmmaker, photographer, teaching artists, production manager, and producer based in Minnesota. Vang has production-managed NICE, an independent pilot, and official selection under Indie Episodic Category at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival. She is a producer for HMONG ORGANIZATION, a comedic web series with writers, May Lee-Yang and Peter Yang, and director, Kang Vang. Vang co-founded the Asian Pacific Island American Minnesota Film Collective (APIA MN Film Collective). Her first short film, RHAUB, an official selection at the 2018 Qhia Dab Neeg Film Festival in Saint Paul, MN. Vang recently received the Forecast Public Art Early-Career Project grant and developed a short experimental narrative film, HMONG EPHEMERA, as a writer/director.
ABOUT THIS FILM: First Death is a micro experimental documentary about three young boys asking each and reflecting with one another their experience of losing their grandfather in 2020 during the COVID19 pandemic. Their sadness, awkwardness, and youthfulness are all wrapped into their interview with one another. I wanted to make sure we document this generation's experience and their voices. Not only from the challenges of receiving an education through distance learning but from the experience of grief and their resilience during this pandemic.