Lulu Wang (filmmaker)

Lulu Wang (born February 25, 1983) is a Chinese-born American filmmaker.

Wang studied music and literature at Boston College from 2001 and graduated in 2005 with a double major in literature and music.

Wang says she was inspired to become a filmmaker after watching Steven Shainberg's 2002 film Secretary in her senior year.

She then took two film production courses and made several short films while still at college.

In 2005, while still a student, Wang received the Best Beginning Film Award at the Boston College Baldwin Awards for Storyteller, which she made together with fellow Boston College student Tony Hale.

They went on to win the Baldwin Award for Best Picture for the short film Pisces at the Boston College Baldwin Film Festival the following year.

Wang and Hale also collaborated on the 2006 documentary short, Fishing the Gulf, on over-fishing in Panama.

After learning the art of film and producing a few short student films and documentaries, Wang moved to Hollywood in 2007 to fully pursue her love for writing.

Filmmaking found itself early in Wang's career, but instead of movie theaters her content was exhibited in courtrooms.

Shown for mediation and court cases, she created short “day in the life” videos for legal firms for her startup business, capturing injured victims’ daily struggles in mundane activities.

She interviewed many clients and their families in an attempt to show the extent of their injuries.

Her next project was the 2007 short film Can-Can, based on a short story by Arturo Vivante about marriage and infidelity.

In 2008, shortly after moving to Los Angeles, Wang interned for a producer alongside Bernadette Bürgi.

After a trip to IKEA, the two decided to make a film together due to their mutual affection for storytelling and romantic comedies.

She is best known for writing and directing the comedy-drama films Posthumous (2014) and The Farewell (2019).

Wang and Bürgi set up their own production company Flying Box Productions; Wang directed multiple web shorts and music videos and, in 2014, her first feature film, Posthumous.

Set in Berlin, Germany, Posthumous is an American-German co-production starring Brit Marling and Jack Huston.

Wang was so dedicated to having Huston in the film, she wrote a heartfelt letter to him, which he later admitted was the reason he signed on to the first-time writer/director's project.

The film debuted at the Zurich Film Festival on 4 October 2014, played in the U.S. at the Miami International Film Festival, and has been released worldwide.

In 2014, Wang was awarded the Chaz and Roger Ebert Directing Fellowship at the Film Independent Spirit Awards.

The same year, she was chosen as a Film Independent Project Involve Directing Fellow.

Wang's 2015 short film Touch premiered at the Palm Springs International ShortFest.

Touch was an NBCU Short Film Festival finalist, was selected by the American Cinematheque for its Annual Focus on Female Directors, and won Best Drama at the Asians on Film Festival.

In May 2016, Wang wrote and narrated a story, "What You Don't Know", for the radio program This American Life.

Later that year, development began on a feature film based on the story with producer Chris Weitz, who had heard it on the radio.

In 2017, Wang was chosen to participate in Sundance Institute’s FilmTwo Initiative, which provides guidance for filmmakers creating their second feature films.

For the latter, she received the Independent Spirit Award for Best Film and the film was named one of the top ten films of 2019 by the American Film Institute.

Wang has also written, produced, and directed several short films, documentaries, and music videos.

Wang was born in Beijing.

Her father Haiyan Wang was a Chinese diplomat to the USSR and her mother Jian Yu is a former cultural critic and editor at the Beijing Literary Gazette. She has a younger brother, Anthony.

Wang spent her early years in Beijing with her parents and briefly lived with her paternal grandmother for a year in Changchun, Jilin, before emigrating to Miami at age 6 because her father was pursuing a PhD at the University of Miami.

She is a classically trained pianist, starting lessons at age four and attending the New World School of the Arts.

Her parents encouraged her to become a professional pianist; her mother took her to a local church in Miami every day to practice before they were able to buy a piano for her.

Wang ultimately decided against a career in music when she was at college.

In January 2019, Wang's second feature film, The Farewell, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was picked up for worldwide distribution by A24.

The film follows struggling New York City artist Billi (played by Awkwafina in her first dramatic role), who travels to China for a family reunion to visit her dying grandmother.

The family has decided to keep the truth about her condition a secret from Nai Nai (Mandarin for "grandmother") and sets up a wedding as a pretense for their reunion.

Wang based the film on her own grandmother's illness, which also included her family setting up a wedding as a pretense; the film opens with a title card stating Based on an actual lie.

The film is presented for the most part in Mandarin Chinese with English subtitles.

It was filmed in the neighborhood where Wang's grandmother lived and Wang cast her actual great aunt Lu Hong to play herself in the film.