Jess is a Chinese-Canadian filmmaker, multi-disciplinary artist and author whose work across fiction and non-fiction bridges personal trauma-healing and the collective healing of our planet. They bring their background in murals, visual art and poetry into their surreal and sensorial films that bring the interior lives of queer Asian migrants to the big screen.
Recently named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film, their narrative short films are currently streaming on the Criterion Channel and the National Film Board of Canada. Previously they have screened worldwide at classrooms, museums and festivals including: International Film Festival Rotterdam, BFI London, BlackStar, SFFilm, Short Shorts Festival & Asia, Durban (Special Mention of the Jury). They are a Film Independent Fast Track fellow for their debut narrative feature, WHEN THE RIVER SPLIT OPEN.
From 2022-2025 they served as a producer and cinematographer on We Were The Scenery which won the Sundance Short Film Jury Award for Non-Fiction and was shortlisted for the 98th Academy Awards for documentary short film. They received their MFA in screenwriting and directing from NYU in 2023. Specializing in cross-cultural storytelling, their filmmaking has taken them from North America to China, Vietnam, and the Philippines.