Utah Filmmaker Showcase: F-1

Mengxu Pan is a director and producer based in Shanghai, China. MFA in film production, University of Utah. She made her first documentary Once Upon A Time In The Old City in 2010, recording the life and struggle of urban families in the background of China’s vast demolition of neighborhoods and painful transition into urbanization. Since then, she has made three narrative short films including The Man From Slaughterhouse (2016).

Her work has been exhibited in China and the US. She currently works in China as a creative producer. She had an active role in several international projects including the A&E- China documentary co-production Scars of Nanking (2017) and a Finland-China interactive entertainment show co-production Forest Challenge (2019). She has also successfully distributed Chinese dramas to Netflix, Hulu and many other markets globally.

Ya-Chi Yang is an independent filmmaker and motion designer based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her animated documentary short, All the things I can remember (2018), was selected by festivals including Mammoth Lake Film Festival, Female Eye Film Festival, and Taichung International Animation Festival. Her animation collaboration, Seeing through the Eyes of Crocodiles, with director, Lien Fan Shen, has been selected for screening at 2016 Seattle Queer Film Festival, Shanghai Pride Film Festival and Beijing Queer Film Festival.

She was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and moved to the US when she was 23. Yang holds a master’s degree from University of Utah majoring in Film and Media Arts. Her work often features emotional struggles like being trapped inside one’s own body as an Alzheimer patient. Her experience of being an international student and immigrating to the US has led her to making a documentary about people like her.