7:00PM Wednesday, June 12, 2019

James Bridges Theater, Melnitz Hall, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television

6:30 P.M. — DOORS OPEN
7:00 P.M. — SCREENING
10:00 P.M. — RECEPTION

Please join us for a night of celebrating our emerging directors at the 2019 Directors Spotlight! Come enjoy a night of screenings as we showcase some of the best films coming out of the UCLA TFT M.F.A. film directing and M.F.A. animation programs.

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Keynote Speaker: Professor Nancy Richardson

 

Feature film editor Nancy Richardson began her career with the 1988 film Stand and Deliver, which won the Independent Spirit award that year for Best Picture, and received a best actor nomination for the film’s star, Edward James Olmos. Her many credits include Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown and Twilight, directed by Catherine Hardwicke; To Sleep with Anger, Selma, Lord, Selma and Annihilation of Fish, directed by Charles Burnett; and Mi Familia, Selena and Why Do Fools Fall in Love, directed by Gregory Nava. She also edited the directorial debut of Maya Angelou’s Down in the Delta.
Other credits include Step Up, starring Channing Tatum; American Violet, starring Alfre Woodard; The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (shared credit), starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson; The Vow (shared credit), starring Channing Tatum; Warm Bodies, starring Nicholas Hoult; Divergent and Insurgent (both shared), starring Shailene Woodley; Everything, Everything, starring Amandla Stenberg; and the recent Fighting with my Family, starring Dwayne Johnson.
She was also an additional editor on Lisa Cholodenko’s Kids Are All Right and Travis Knight’s Bumblebee.  Her next project, Paramount’s thriller Monster Problem, starring Dylan O’Brien, is currently shooting in Australia.
In 2001, Richardson received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for her work on the TV miniseries Hendrix. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as well as American Cinema Editors, and has been on the Editors Guild Board of Directors for more than 15 years.
Richardson received her undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley and her M.F.A. from the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.
She has been a professor at UCLA TFT for 19 years and is currently the head of post-production.
 
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Distinguished Alumni Award: Quyen Tran

 

Quyen Tran is a Los Angeles based cinematographer whose work prioritizes story above all else.

Tran recently wrapped photography on the feature film PALM SPRINGS, starring Andy Samberg and JK Simmons.  Prior to that she shot the pilot for the upcoming Netflix drama UNBELIEVABLE with director Lisa Cholodenko, starring Kaitlyn Dever, Toni Collette and Merritt Wever.  She splits her time between features and television, having shot multiple pilots and shows for HBO and Netflix.  She also lensed two features that premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival: Netflix’s Deidra and Laney Rob a Train, a teen heist comedy; and The Little Hours, a comedy set in the 14th century about a servant who seeks refuge from his master at a chaotic covenant of nuns, starring Alison Brie, Molly Shannon, Nick Offerman and John C. Reilly.  

Among her other narrative credits are director Justin Lerner’s The Automatic Hate and Girlfriend, winners of the SXSW Audience Award and Gotham Award respectively.   She is a frequent collaborator of director Grace Lee, whose documentary film, American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs, was a winner of the Peabody Award.  This past November Tran traveled to a refugee camp in Kenya to document a story about girls’ education for the non profit organization GIRL RISING.  She also is a mentor for HBO, and attended the Sundance 2019 Mentoring Workshop on their behalf.  Tran takes mentoring very seriously, and has been a guest speaker for multiple universities and high schools in between projects.  

Beginning her career as a still photographer, Tran gained acclaim for her stunning images of the heartbreaking destruction of 9/11. Her emotive cinematography captures the humanity and truth of each moment, regardless of the subject matter. She has shot films throughout the United States and in Africa, South Africa, Canada, Thailand, Japan, China, Russia, Italy and Vietnam.

Tran was featured in American Cinematographer as an ASC Rising Star in 2017, and was recently named in Variety’s 10 DPs to Watch 2019 this past April.  When she isn’t on set, Tran is an avid gardener, cook and mother.
 
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Fly Trap • Connor Bland

Connor Bland is an animator/filmmaker born and raised in Sacramento, CA. He received his B.F.A. in Animation at DePaul University (Chicago, IL) before coming to the UCLA Animation Workshop. He has worked at Sony Pictures Imageworks as an animation intern, and will be working in the cinematic animation department at Sony Playstation this summer. While character animation has been his initial background in the field, his ultimate goal is to direct animated films. His most recent short film, FlyTrap, won Best of Show at the 2018 UCLA Animation Showcase, and has screened at the Manchester Animation Festival and Palm Springs Animation.
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 ‘Charles falls into a germaphobic hysteria.’
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Drifting • Hanxiong Bo

Hanxiong Bo is a writer-director based in Los Angeles and Beijing. As a storyteller, his stories reflect the fear and struggle people usually do not share. Hanxiong Bo is the recipient of Jack Nicholson Distinguished Student Director Award in 2017 and the HFPA Directing Fellowship in 2018. His working credits include projects with directors like Jennifer Reeder and Francis Ford Coppola. His previous short film “Haircut” has been selected by multiple film festivals including LA Shorts International Film Festival, Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film festival, Bahamas International Film Festival, etc. He received his bachelor degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Currently he is pursuing his M.F.A degree in film directing at University of California, Los Angeles.
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Disguised as a girl growing up during the time of one-child policy in China, Yan confuses about his gender identity and struggles with the conservative world around him now. Drifting his dad's old taxi becomes his way of expressing feelings.
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Lotus • Sydney Deng

Lovely guy studying animation all over the world.



'Sympathy and Love make life a circle.'

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Tea Shop • Jessie Lee

Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Jessie Lee is a Taiwanese-American writer/director and editor based in Los Angeles. Jessie spent ten years growing up on the other side of the world in Taiwan, and her work revolves around themes of displacement. She tells stories of characters that have been uprooted or struggle to find a sense of cultural belonging in their environment.

Jessie received her BA in film studies and literary journalism from UC Irvine, and her MFA in film directing from UCLA. She is a recipient of the Edie and Lew Wasserman Fellowship for her thesis short film, Tea Shop. Her most recent film, Daiquiri, will screen at the DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival.

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Xin Liu must confront past wounds when her sister returns home after years of separation.
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Homegrown • Yubo Wang

Yubo Wang (aka “Tiger”) is an independent documentary filmmaker from Baotou, China. He is currently a graduate student at UCLA TFT and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in the Communication University of China. Yubo is working on his thesis documentary, a middle-aged man walking across the world without modern technology to spread love.
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For these Mormons, marijuana runs in the family.

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Undercut • Kelly Pike

Kelly Pike is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker and recipient of the DGA (Director’s Guild of America) Award of Outstanding Directorial Achievement. 

With an established artistic practice grounded in Multi-Media Installation she first expanded her practice into filmmaking by working with documentarian Albert Maysles, then went on to earn an M.F.A. from the UCLA Film Production program.

Her first film, OWEN, screened at the Cannes Film Festival where it was awarded Best Student Film Award in the Emerging Filmmakers Showcase, took home Best Short Film from the Bahamas International Film Festival and Best Texas Film from the USA Film Festival, and premiered online as a Vimeo Staff Pick. It has since screened internationally and will air on PBS in Spring 2019. She went on to direct James Franco and Marianna Palka in an adaptation of Faulkner’s tale, A ROSE FOR EMILY, which has been featured in the film, MISSISSIPPI REQUIEM (executive produced by Lee Caplin).

Her work has been supported by organizations such as Creative Capital, The Warhol Foundation, The City of Houston, The Caucus Foundation, NATO (National Association of Theater Owners), and the Sony Streisand Foundation. Concurrent to her own productions, she was also one of the Co-Founders of the subscription-based video art periodical, BUFFET DVD and has worked as a Guest Curator for The Aurora Picture Show. 

She has most recently just completed her latest short film, UNDERCUT.

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Two high school athletes become unlikely teammates in the wake of unspoken trauma. 
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Bounty • Shirley Zhou

Shirley Zhou is a Chinese-American animator/filmmaker born and raised in the bustling suburbs of the San Gabriel Valley. She graduated from UCLA TFT with a B.A. in Film and Television before continuing on directly into the school’s M.F.A. Animation program. Zhou has previously interned with Titmouse, Inc., and worked on their feature film Nerdland, as well as the Disney XD show Kirby Buckets. She is passionate about compelling stories and beautiful art, and hopes to become a visual development artist or story artist in the animation industry.
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An ex-bounty hunter makes breakfast with his young daughter, who becomes increasingly curious about his past profession.
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Soukoon • Farah Shaer

Farah Shaer is a Lebanese director, actress, and socio-political activist known for her controversial work in exploring Arab Women themes. Her debut short film “I Offered You Pleasure” was nominated for the Grand Prize at Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival and Busan International Film Festival among others but got banned in Lebanon by the government’s censorship bureau. In 2015, she was awarded a full-ride scholarship to pursue a MFA in Film directing at UCLA. Her latest short film “Faces In The Sun” received the Excellence in Arab Filmmaking Award at the 2019 European Film Festival in Paris. She also received several awards for her films including James Bridges Award for Outstanding Director, Delia Salvi Memorial Award for Directing Actors, InterFilm Berlin Short Film Festival Audience Award, and the Jury Prize at Dubai Film Festival and Cinequest Film Festival among others. Farah is currently developing her first feature length film.
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While her marital life decays, Mariam worries she might be pregnant.

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Shoot the Moon • William Rowe

My first introduction to the power of storytelling was watching Twilight Zone marathons on Sci-Fi Channel with my dad and younger brother. Those black and white tales of morality and choice inspired me to study screenwriting and filmmaking at the University of North Carolina (about 30 minutes from my home city of Raleigh). After moving to Los Angeles in 2013, I began taking night classes at the Animation Guild while working during the day at a local grocery chain. Animation allowed me to tell any zanny, absurd story I could think of, and most unexpectedly, taught me the importance of believable, honest characters.

I applied to the UCLA MFA program because I wanted to delve into the intricacies of making entertaining and exciting films. But beyond that I wanted to tell stories that mean something. My parents are social justice lawyers who work with groups like the NAACP and Southern Poverty Law Center to help change the world, and that’s what I hope to do with my films. Be they comedies, action/adventure or drama, I think all stories are important and can help us to empathize and learn about the world and people surrounding us. Animation has allowed me to tell the stories personal to me, and in a way that I can be honest with my vision. I look forward to sharing my work with anyone and everyone and hope that by watching they will add a bit of light to the world!

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'Brothers Max and Sam can't agree on anything, but when Max's ambition to fly to the moon in a cardboard box puts the two in grave danger, it's up to older brother Sam to get them home safe'
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