2021-2022 ARMED WITH A CAMERA FELLOWS
Iliana Garcia
Iliana Garcia is Mexican Filipinx American filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Her short films, inspired by poetic personal essays, provide an intimate look into the world of identity, loss and place. A graduate of Pomona College, Iliana’s thesis film, FLOWERS WILT IN CONCRETE, took home Best Experimental Short and Best Nonfiction Short at the 5C Film Festival. As an assistant editor/editor, Iliana has worked on projects highlighting green building, skate culture, and queer youth empowerment. Most recently, she had the honor to work on AND SHE COULD BE NEXT, a two-part PBS docuseries about women of color transforming politics from the ground up.
Candace Ho
Candace Ho is a Taiwanese American filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She received her bachelor’s degree from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television with a concentration in narrative directing. Her work strives to explore mental health, the complexities of female relationships, and feelings of “otherness” and loneliness in an increasingly isolating world.
Kitty Hu
Kitty Hu is a Chinese American filmmaker with roots in the Bay Area, California. She recently graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in film/television and international development studies. Currently, she works in documentary film and visual journalism. She is passionate about amplifying stories at the intersection of justice and human relationships, looking at topics like labor, housing, migration, and sustainability.
Melanie Lim
Melanie Lim completed her masters at the USC School of Cinematic Arts graduate program with a focus on directing and editing. For two years, she was the lead teaching assistant for the graduate documentary class and was awarded the prestigious Annenberg student fellowship. While directing is her first love, she has found editing to be an equally fulfilling outlet for storytelling. When her nose isn’t buried in creative work, Melanie likes to spend time learning recipes from different parts of the world. Her obsession for food became her window to other cultures and her way of expressing love to those closest to her.
Ziyao Liu
Ziyao Liu is a Chinese writer/director/editor based in Los Angeles. She is an MFA candidate at UCLA directing program. She cares deeply about groups of people and subcultures that are not often seen on screen in both Chinese and American society. She creates films of a personal nature to generate empathy and understanding in people who are otherwise very different. She received her B.A. in film from University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she developed a midwestern work ethic.
Molvatu Sae-Ue
Molvatu Sae-Ue is a film producer and director from Thailand based in Los Angeles. She holds a Bachelor's Degree in English from Silpakorn University in Bangkok, an Associate Degree in Film Production from Santa Monica College, and a Certificate in Entertainment Studies from UCLA Extension. In 2019, she produced her first feature film, FREE BY NOON, written and directed by Sundance Screenwriters Lab Alumni, Lakpathy Wijesekara. Being an immigrant in the USA, Molvatu wrote and directed her debut short film, PAO, a story of a Thai immigrant family in Los Angeles.
Brandon Soun
Brandon Soun is a Cambodian American documentary filmmaker from Long Beach, California, and a recent UCLA graduate with a B.A. in Asian American Studies. During his time at UCLA, he gained a passion for creating community media through EthnoCommunications and has been pursuing a career in documentary filmmaking ever since. His personal work centers around the Southeast Asian community, covering topics such as education, gentrification, and immigration justice. Currently, Brandon is working as an assistant editor alongside Tadashi Nakamura for THIRD ACT, an upcoming documentary on the life of Robert A. Nakamura.
Olivia Stark
Olivia Stark is a multiracial Chinese American writer and artist from Los Angeles, California. She recently graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in Asian American Studies and a minor in Film, Television, and Digital Media Studies. Her two passions in life are social justice and animated filmmaking, and her goal as a filmmaker is to merge these two passions. She has worked in the development departments at Illumination Entertainment, Janet Yang Productions, and Skydance Animation, and is excited to see where her career in film development takes her.
Evelyn Hang Yin
Evelyn Hang Yin is an interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Working with photography, video, text, and installation, Yin investigates how her personal experience moving between China and the U.S. informs her cultural identity. Her work is invested in issues of race, gender, history, place/displacement, and collective memory. Evelyn received a BA in Political Science and Media Studies from University of California, Berkeley and an MFA in Photography and Media from California Institute of the Arts.
