About

Janet Chen (Ma) (she/her/hers) is an award-winning film and multimedia director, producer, and educator. Her work often explores community stories of representation, resistance, and resilience through a multigenerational lens.

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Her latest short film Asian Bitches Speak (2024) was honored with a Special Jury Award for Documentary Short from the 40th Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival presented by Visual Communications, a Best Director Award for Short Film from the 31st QFilms Long Beach LGBTQ+ Film Festival and an Audience Choice Award for Experimental Documentary at the 10th Feminist Border Arts Film Festival. The film toured around the U.S. as part of “Resistance & Joy,” a program of the 2025 Color Congress Elev8Docs Distribution and Marketing Initiative.

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Janet has also produced and managed Emmy and Webby-nominated film and multimedia projects. She holds a B.A. in Film Studies from U.C. Irvine, and a M.F.A. in Film & Digital Media: Social Documentation from U.C. Santa Cruz. She has taught filmmaking at the Center for EthnoCommunications at U.C.L.A. and in Film and Media Studies at U.C. Irvine.

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Janet was the founding manager and steering committee member of the Asian American Documentary Network (A-Doc), and she is a member of Video Consortium and Brown Girls Doc Mafia (BGDM).