Yi Cui is a Chinese filmmaker who works between her home country and North America. Her approach to creating films employs a process-driven methodology, allowing her to explore the intersections among diverse cinematic forms. She has created a series of works centered around the theme of ‘Migrating Cinema,’ delving into the connections between traveling film projection, Indigenous cinema, auto-ethnography, and ancient screen arts like the shadow theatre.
Her work has received accolades including the Grand Prize at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, the Libraries’ Award at Cinéma du Réel, the Best Short Film Award from the American Anthropological Association’s Visual Anthropology Film & Media Festival. Several of Yi’s films have been screened at exhibitions and festivals worldwide, including Rotterdam International Film Festival, Images Festival, Viennale International Film Festival, Short Film Week Regensburg, Message to Man, and Iran International Documentary Film Festival Cinéma Vérité, among others. Yi is a Flaherty Seminar Fellow in 2024. She currently teaches at Colgate University in New York state in the US.
In recent years, Yi has been actively engaged within the communities of Eastern Tibet, facilitating herdsmen, monks, and young students in creating their own films. Based on her reflections on the experiences of living and working within the local Tibetan communities, Yi created the experimental documentary “To Alexandra,” which represents a collaborative effort between herself and native filmmakers.