Photo by Richmond Lam
Downloadable headshots here.
Yung Chang is the multi-award-winning director of feature documentaries Up the Yangtze (2007), China Heavyweight (2012), The Fruit Hunters (2013), and This is Not a Movie (2019). His latest, Wuhan Wuhan (2021), world premiered at Hot Docs ’21, won Best International Feature at Doc Edge NZ, qualifying for the Oscars® and opened the 35th season of acclaimed PBS strand, POV. This is Not a Movie premiered at TIFF ’19 and is streaming on The Criterion Collection. His Field of Vision short Gatekeeper (2016) is a Vimeo Staff Pick and Oscar® qualifier, winning Best Short at the Los Angeles Film Festival. Pandemic19 (2020) was a Short of the Week, streaming on Kanopy and PBS World Channel.
His first feature script, Eggplant, was a part of the 2018 TIFF Writers Studio and the 2015 Sundance Institute Screenwriting and Directing labs. It’s slated to go into production in 2025. He is also adapting a limited series from the 2020 Giller Prize-winning short story collection, How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa, co-produced by First Generation Films.
A graduate of the Meisner acting technique from the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in NYC and Concordia University's Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema in Montreal, Chang's films are recognized for being humanistic stories exploring emotionally complex characters through a cinematic lens.
Chang’s films have premiered at international film festivals
including Sundance, Berlin, Toronto, and IDFA and have played theatrically in cinemas around the world. Up the Yangtze was one of the top-grossing documentary releases in 2008. In 2013, China Heavyweight became the most widely screened social-issue documentary in Chinese history with an official release in 200 Mainland Chinese cinemas.
His films have been critically-acclaimed, receiving awards in
Paris, Milan, Vancouver, San Francisco, the Canadian Screen Award, Taiwan Golden Horse (twice), Cinema Eye Honors, among others and have been nominated at Sundance, the Independent Spirit Awards and the Emmys.
Chang's films have broadcast on international networks and streamers including Netflix, Amazon Prime, PBS, National Geographic, ARTE, ZDF, Channel 4, HBO, TMN, NHK, CBC, Bell Media, Tencent, iQiyi, Mubi, Kanopy, World Channel, VPRO Netherlands, TV2 Denmark, SBS Australia, RTS Switzerland and EBS Korea. He's received funding from major organizations like Sundance Institute, Doc Society, Telefilm, Ontario Creates, SODEC, Hot Docs, National Film Board and Canada Council for the Arts.
Chang is the recipient of the Don Haig Award, the Yolande and Pierre Perrault Award, and the Guggenheim Emerging Artist Award. He is a member of the Directors Guild of Canada. In 2013, he was invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization behind the Academy Awards / Oscars®.
Up the Yangtze and The Fruit Hunters were co-produced by the National Film Board of Canada and Eyesteelfilm.
For his full filmography, see IMDB.
To purchase Yung Chang’s films, click here in Canada and
here in the USA for Up the Yangtze 《沿江而上》 and China Heavyweight 《千錘百鍊》. Click here for The Fruit Hunters in the USA. Click here for This is Not a Movie and here for Wuhan Wuhan.
To contact Yung Chang, please click here.