film director
A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, pr ...
and was part of the collective member directors of Canadian film production firm
EyeSteelFilm
EyeSteelFilm is a Montreal-based Canadian cinema production company co-founded by Daniel Cross and Mila Aung-Thwin, dedicated to socially engaged cinema, bringing social and political change through cinematic expression. Today the studio is run by ...
.
Chang is a graduate of
Concordia University
Concordia University (French: ''Université Concordia'') is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College and Sir George Williams University, Concordia is one of the t ...
's
Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema
The Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, a division of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Concordia University, is a film school located in Montreal, Quebec. Informally known as MHSoC, the school accepts around 250 students a year for programs in animation, ...
in
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...
Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute is a non-profit organization founded by Robert Redford committed to the growth of independent artists. The institute is driven by its programs that discover and support independent filmmakers, theatre artists and composers fr ...
(2015). He was invited to join the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motion ...
in 2013 and is currently an active member.
Early life
Chang grew up in
Whitby, Ontario
Whitby is a town in Durham Region. Whitby is located in Southern Ontario east of Ajax and west of Oshawa, on the north shore of Lake Ontario and is home to the headquarters of Durham Region. It had a population of 138,501 at the 2021 census. It ...
as one of few children of color. He was later sent to boarding school at
Upper Canada College
Upper Canada College (UCC) is an elite, all-boys, private school in Toronto, Ontario, operating under the International Baccalaureate program. The college is widely described as the country's most prestigious preparatory school, and has produce ...
.
Career
Documentary
Chang released the medium length documentary, ''Earth to Mouth'', in 2002 with the National Film Board of Canada. It revolves around migrant Mexican worker working on a Chinese operated farm in south-east Ontario.
Chang released his first feature length documentary, ''
Up the Yangtze
''Up the Yangtze'' is a 2007 documentary film directed by Chinese-Canadian director Yung Chang. The film focuses on people affected by the building of the Three Gorges Dam across the Yangtze river in Hubei, China. The theme of the film is the tr ...
'' in 2007. The film highlights the repercussions of building the
Three Gorges Dam
The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric gravity dam that spans the Yangtze River by the town of Sandouping, in Yiling District, Yichang, Hubei province, central China, downstream of the Three Gorges. The Three Gorges Dam has been the world' ...
and the economic effect on rural families. It was one of the top-grossing documentary box office releases in 2008 and garnered numerous awards, including the 2008 Golden Horse Award for Best Documentary.
Chang released his sophomore film, '' China Heavyweight'', in 2012. It is about a boxing coach and his two students in rural China fighting to become amateur and professional champions. The film premiered at Sundance 2012 in the World Documentary competition. Like its predecessor, ''China Heavyweight'' also won the Golden Horse Award for Best Documentary in 2012.
In the same year, Chang also completed ''
The Fruit Hunters
''The Fruit Hunters'' is a 2012 feature documentary film about exotic fruit cultivators and preservationists. It is directed by Yung Chang and co-written by Chang and Mark Slutsky, and inspired by Adam Leith Gollner's 2008 book of the same name ...
'', a feature documentary about exotic fruit cultivators, preservationists, and the history of fruits. ''The Fruit Hunters'' premiered at the
International Documentary Festival
International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations".
International may also refer to:
Music Albums
* ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011
* ''International'' (New Order album), 2002
* ''International'' (The T ...
Berlinale
The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...
Film Festival in 2013. It won the Best Film award at the 2013 Environmental Film Festival in Paris.
His documentary short, ''Gatekeeper,'' was released in 2016 and is streaming on
Field of Vision
The visual field is the "spatial array of visual sensations available to observation in introspectionist psychological experiments". Or simply, visual field can be defined as the entire area that can be seen when an eye is fixed straight at a point ...
,
Laura Poitras
Laura Poitras (; born February 2, 1964) is an American director and producer of documentary films.
Poitras has received numerous awards for her work, including the 2015 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for '' Citizenfour'', about Ed ...
' curated online film unit. It centers around retired police officer, Yukio Shige, and his work on preventing suicides around
Tōjinbō
is a series of cliffs on the Sea of Japan in Japan. It is located in the Antō part of Mikuni-chō in Sakai, Fukui Prefecture. The cliffs average in height and stretch for .
, an infamous location for suicides in Japan. ''Gatekeeper'' won Best Short Documentary at the
LA Film Festival
The LA Film Festival was an annual film festival that was held in Los Angeles, California, and usually took place in June. It showcased independent, international, feature, documentary and short films, as well as web series, music videos, epis ...
in 2016, qualifying for the
Oscars
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
.
''This is Not a Movie'', his feature documentary about prolific Middle East correspondent,
Robert Fisk
Robert Fisk (12 July 194630 October 2020) was a writer and journalist who held British and Irish citizenship. He was critical of United States foreign policy in the Middle East, and the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinians. His stan ...
, had its world premiere at the 2019
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a perman ...
. It was co-produced by the
National Film Board of Canada
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary fi ...
and is distributed in the USA by KimStim Films.
Chang released ''Pandemic19'' co-directed with his wife,
Annie Katsura Rollins
Annie Katsura Rollins is an American artist, scenic designer, and puppeteer. She specializes in traditional Chinese shadow puppetry.
Early life and education
Rollins grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her mother is of Chinese and Japanese ance ...
, executive produced by Jean Tsien, edited by Xi Feng and lensed by Derek Howard. The film won two awards at the 2020
Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival
The Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival is a documentary film festivals held annually in Hot Springs, Arkansas. The festival began in 1991, with a screening of ten Academy Award-nominated documentaries.
Overview
The festival screens 100 docum ...
for Best Documentary Short Special Jury Mention and the Matt DeCample Audience Choice Award Short. The jury wrote: "PANDEMIC19 is a poignant document of the factual and emotional details of Covid-19 as seen through the eyes of three American frontline doctors. Smartly utilizing the doctors own video testimonials, this film feels alive and immediate while we remain so disconnected."
Narrative
Chang wrote the neo-noir romantic screenplay for ''Eggplant《茄子》'', his first narrative feature, about a wedding photographer's happenstance encounter with his swindler ex-girlfriend. The project was selected to participate in the
Sundance Institute
Sundance Institute is a non-profit organization founded by Robert Redford committed to the growth of independent artists. The institute is driven by its programs that discover and support independent filmmakers, theatre artists and composers fr ...
Director and Screenwriters Lab in 2015.
Influences
Chang is a fan of
cinéma vérité
Cinéma vérité (, , ; "truthful cinema") is a style of documentary filmmaking developed by Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch, inspired by Dziga Vertov's theory about Kino-Pravda. It combines improvisation with use of the camera to unveil truth or ...
, taking influences from films released by the National Film Board of Canada in the 1950s and 1960s, such as
Lonely Boy (film)
''Lonely Boy'' is a 1962 ''cinéma vérité'' documentary about the former teen sensation Paul Anka. The film takes its name from Anka's hit song, " Lonely Boy", which he performs to screaming fans in the film. This short documentary makes use of ...
, and
Allan King
Allan Winton King, (February 6, 1930 – June 15, 2009), was a Canadian film director.
Life
Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, during the Great Depression, King attended Henry Hudson Elementary School, in Kitsilano.
Up the Yangtze
''Up the Yangtze'' is a 2007 documentary film directed by Chinese-Canadian director Yung Chang. The film focuses on people affected by the building of the Three Gorges Dam across the Yangtze river in Hubei, China. The theme of the film is the tr ...
The Fruit Hunters
''The Fruit Hunters'' is a 2012 feature documentary film about exotic fruit cultivators and preservationists. It is directed by Yung Chang and co-written by Chang and Mark Slutsky, and inspired by Adam Leith Gollner's 2008 book of the same name ...
'' (full-length documentary)
*2016: ''
Gatekeeper
A gatekeeper is a person who controls access to something, for example via a city gate or bouncer, or more abstractly, controls who is granted access to a category or status. Gatekeepers assess who is "in or out", in the classic words of manage ...
Wuhan Wuhan
Wuhan (, ; ; ) is the capital of Hubei, Hubei Province in the China, People's Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China, with a population of over eleven million, the List of cities in China ...
'' (documentary)
Screenwriter
*2002: ''The Fish Market'' (short)
*2007: ''Up the Yangtze''
*2009: ''Ali Shan'' (short)
*2012: ''China Heavyweight''
*2012: ''The Fruit Hunters''
*2016: ''Gatekeeper'' (short)
*2017: '' Eggplant'' (script)
Screenings and awards
Yung Chang is also the recipient of the 2008 Yolande and
Pierre Perrault
Pierre Perrault (29 June 1927 – 24 June 1999) was a Québécois documentary film director. He directed 20 films between 1963 and 1996. He was one of the most important filmmakers in Canada, although largely unknown outside of Québec. In ...
award for most promising filmmaker at the 2008 Rendez-vous du cinema québecois; received the 2008
Don Haig
Don Haig (22 July 1933 — 2 March 2002) was a Canadian filmmaker, editor, and producer.
His work in film and television spanned nearly five decades. Over the course of his career, he won Academy, Genie, and Gemini awards, and the Governor Gener ...
Charles Guggenheim
Charles Eli Guggenheim (March 31, 1924 – October 9, 2002) was an American documentary film director, producer, and screenwriter. He was the most honored documentary filmmaker in the academy history, winning four Oscars from twelve nominations ...
World Socialist Web Site
The World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) is the website of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). It describes itself as an "online newspaper of the international Trotskyist movement". The WSWS publishes articles and analys ...