Yi Chen on Shake The Cosmos

What is the process like for choosing the documentary subjects? What types of conversations have started because of the documentary? This week, Yi Chen and I discuss her film First Vote and the impact the process and aftermath have had on the subjects and her.

YI CHEN, Director, Producer, Cinematographer, Editor

Yi Chen is a documentary filmmaker based in Washington, DC. Her work explores the intersection of racial justice, immigration, and democracy. She is a 2019 Open Society Foundations Soros Equality Fellow and 2020 DC Arts and Humanities Fellow. Her first feature length documentary FIRST VOTE received grants from the Ford Foundation JustFilms, CAAM, ITVS, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Kartemquin Films and Southern Documentary Fund. The film participated in pitches at HotDocs, DOC NYC Pitch Perfect, Tribeca IF/Then, AFI Docs, and Double Exposure Film Festival.

It was workshopped through DCTV Docu Work-In-Progress Lab, Kartemquin Films KTQ Lab, UC Berkeley Investigative Reporting Program, and Docs in Progress Fellowship Program. Her previous film CHINATOWN, about the activism of long-time residents to keep Wah Luck House affordable for low income seniors to stay in DC Chinatown, won IndieCapitol Awards Best Documentary Short and aired on PBS station WHUT. The film was featured by the Washington Post, NPR and NBC4. Yi holds an MFA in Film and Media Arts from American University.

Find the documentary at https://www.firstvotefilm.com/

or https://worldchannel.org/episode/arf-first-vote/

Watch the Documentary Panel Discussion at https://youtu.be/0pNQI_141CY

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