Yi Chen

Yi Chen is an independent documentary filmmaker based in Washington, DC. She directed and produced FIRST VOTE (America ReFramed, 2020) which qualified for 2021 Academy Awards Best Picture and Best Documentary Feature. The film won 2022 Telly Awards and 2020 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival’s Special Jury Award for Art & Craft of Documentary Form. Yi also directed and produced CHINATOWN (2013) which was broadcast on WHUT and won IndieCapitol Awards Best Documentary Short, and FL324 (2008) which was selected by the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, a qualifying festival for the Oscars. Her credits as producer also include THE PAST AND FUTURE OF DC CHINATOWN (Smithsonian 2018) and U.S. AMBASSADORS IN BEIJING (VOA 2015). Yi’s work has received support from Ford Foundation JustFilms, Open Society Foundations, ITVS, Kartemquin Films, Southern Documentary Fund, Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, and DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Yi holds an MFA in Film and Media Arts from American University. She is a DC Arts and Humanities Fellow, 202Creates Resident, Rockwood Leadership Institute alum, and 2019 Soros Equality Fellow.