An online discussion with the filmmakers of Finging Yingying. (link to film provided after signing up for the talk.)
About the filmmakers:
Jiayan “Jenny” Shi (director, producer, cinematographer) is a Chicago-based documentary filmmaker and video journalist who is passionate about social justice issues regarding people of color. She shoots, edits and produces video stories and short documentaries about immigration, race and crime in Chicago for multiple outlets. She is also working on several projects as a researcher, digital content editor and translator including the ITVS co-produced web series Pulling The Thread and the 2020 Academy Award-winning Higher Ground Netflix film, American Factory. Jenny is a graduate of Kartemquin’s Diverse Voices In Docs program, a TFI Network alum, the winner of the Paley DocPitch Competition 2018 and a fellow of 2020-2021 Women at Sundance | Adobe Fellowship. Jenny is named one of the DOC NYC “40 Under 40” filmmakers.
Brent E. Huffman (producer) is an award-winning director, writer and cinematographer of documentaries and television programs. His work ranges from documentaries aired on The Discovery Channel, The National Geographic Channel, NBC, CNN, PBS and Al Jazeera, to Sundance Film Festival premieres, to ethnographic films made for the China Exploration and Research Society. He has directed, produced, shot and edited short documentaries for online outlets like The New York Times, TIME, Salon, Huffington Post and PBS Arts. Most recently, Huffman completed the documentary Saving Mes Aynak about the fight to save Mes Aynak, a 5,000-year-old Buddhist site in Afghanistan, threatened by a Chinese copper mine. "Saving Mes Aynak" has won over thirty major awards, been translated in over twenty languages and has been broadcast on television in over fifty countries. The film premiered on Netflix in January 2017.
Shilin Sun (co-producer,cinematographer) is a cinematographer and producer based in Los Angeles. After finishing his Bachelor’s degree in Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and joining the Film MFA program at the ArtCenter College of Design in 2018, Shilin worked as assistant editor on the PBS Documentary-series Veterans Coming Home. Shilin's most recent works also include an in-development documentary on the Women Airforce Service Pilots during WWII, directed by Oscar-nominated director Matia Karrell.
Sponsored by Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies/Asian Educational Media Service, The Spurlock Museum of World Cultures, Illinois Global Institute, Center for African Studies, Center for Global Studies, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, European Union Center, Lemann Center for Brazilian Studies, Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center, Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures.
