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 screened internationally, and 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, including May 19th Project and Can We All Get Along? The Segregation of John Muir High School.

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

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Janet holds a B.A. in Film Studies from U.C. Irvine, and a M.F.A. in Social Documentation - Film & Digital Media from U.C. Santa Cruz. She has taught theory-informed filmmaking, film history and theory, and Asian American and Pacific Islander history and culture in media at U.C. Irvine. and the U.C.L.A. Center for EthnoCommunications.​