Filmmaker + Educator
About
Janet Chen (she/her) is a filmmaker and educator. As a queer woman of color, she creates work to amplify underrepresented and marginalized communities and stories.
Janet specializes in documentaries and nonfiction media and also has experience creating narratives, music videos, trailers, promotional/informational videos, and new/emerging media.
Her work has screened at film festivals nationally, including the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, San Francisco Black Film Festival, New York's Asian American International Film Festival, Hawai’i International Film Festival, and Outfest. Her films have also screened in educational institutions including UCLA, community organizations including the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California, and at conferences including the Association for Asian American Studies Conference and the Connected Learning Summit.
As an educator, Janet co-taught documentary filmmaking and cinema studies for the Center for EthnoCommunications at UCLA with filmmaker and professor Renee Tajima-Peña for five years. She has also taught and worked at UC Irvine, UCLA Extension, and community filmmaking programs, including Visual Communications’ Digital Histories for senior citizens, and the youth empowerment program at Search to Involve Pilipino Americans.
Her other experience includes film festival operations, film programming, and project and team management. She is a leadership team member for A-Doc (Asian American Documentary Network) and a member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia.
She is currently pursuing her Master's of Fine Arts degree at the University of California, Santa Cruz in the Film & Digital Media Social Documentation program. She is also a Teaching Assistant in Film & Digital Media and the Graduate Student Researcher for Dean Celine Parreñas Shimizu in the Arts Division.
Janet likes walks with her dog and dreams of being on a food competition show.
Contact: jtchen6@gmail.com
Los Angeles, CA
