Hi there, I’m a documentary director/editor based in New York City.

As a hardcore introvert, my favorite childhood pastime was people-watching in a small-town hospital in Southeast China where my mom worked as a physician.

Documentary filmmaking gives me the perfect excuse to study human beings and also allows me to establish a genuine connection with the people I people-watch.

Films I directed or edited have screened at Busan International Film Festival, IDFA, CPH:DOX, Hot Docs, Tribeca Film Festival, among others and received support from Asian Cinema Fund, IDFA Bertha Fund and Chicken & Egg Pictures. I’m SFFILM’s 2019 New American Fellow and a former artist-in-residence at the Jacob Burns Film Center. In 2023, I was selected for PBS’s inaugural Ignite Mentorship for Diverse Voices Initiatives.

I’m interested in stories about loneliness, like this Chinese businessman who lives with his son and 11 sex dolls. Or the industry of paid cuddling.

[Loneliness]

I’m also interested in stories about women, particularly about what we’re NOT allowed to be. For example, are women allowed to be vulnerable? This is a question I explored in my first feature film, Dear another, I Meant to Write about Death. It’s a personal journey I went on with my mother who’s a doctor and also a cancer survivor. 

[Women]

I’m working on a new film about a ballroom in Flushing, New York, where Asian American women in their 60s, many being grandmothers, come to dance and to flirt. I’m looking for funding for this film.

[Desire]

I’m available for documentary and commercial work. If you want to hire me as a director, editor or speaker, or recommend me to anyone you know, send me an email: siyi.chen.pku@gmail.com I’m fun to work with!

I’m fluent in both Mandarin and English.

Besides making movies, I also write poems and collect pretty socks.