Happy 37th Birthday, Lulu Wang! Born today in 1983 as Wáng Zǐyì, this Chinese-American classical pianist-turned filmmaker learned filmmaking through work-for-hire gigs.
Wang has also written, produced, and directed several short films, documentaries, and music videos.
Born in Beijing, China, her father was a Chinese diplomat to the USSR and her mother is a former cultural critic and editor at the Beijing Literary Gazette. Wang has a younger brother named Anthony.
Wang spent her early years in Beijing with her parents and briefly lived with her paternal grandmother for a year in Changchun, Jilin, before emigrating to Miami, Florida at age six. This was because her father was pursuing a PhD at the University of Miami.
Wang is a classically trained pianist, starting lessons at age four and attending the New World School of the Arts.
Her parents encouraged her to become a professional pianist; her mother took her to a local church in Miami every day to practice before they were able to buy a piano for her. Wang ultimately decided against a career in music when she was at college.
Years later, Wang studied music and literature at Boston College from 2001 and graduated in 2005 with a double major in literature and music.
Wang has said that she was inspired to become a filmmaker after watching American film director and producer Steven Shainberg's 2002 American erotic black comedy romance/drama film 'Secretary' in her senior year.
Afterwards, Wang took two film production courses and made several short films while still at college.
In 2005, while still a student, Wang received the Best Beginning Film Award at the Boston College Baldwin Awards for Storyteller, which she made together with fellow Boston College student Tony Hale.
They later went on to win the Baldwin Award for Best Picture for the twelve-minute American video short film 'Pisces' at the Boston College Baldwin Film Festival the following year.
The following year, Wang and Hale also collaborated on the half-hour 2006 American documentary short film Fishing the Gulf, on over-fishing in Panama.
Wang's next project was the seven-minute 2007 American drama short film Can-Can. It was based on a short story by Italian American fiction writer Arturo Vivante about marriage and infidelity.
In 2008, shortly after moving to Los Angeles, California, Wang interned for a producer alongside Swiss filmmaker and producer Bernadette Bürgi.
After a trip to IKEA, the two decided to make a film together due to their mutual affection for storytelling and romantic comedies. Wang and Bürgi later set up their own production company Flying Box Productions.
Wang directed multiple web shorts and music videos and, in the mid-2010s, her first feature film, directed her first feature film.
This was with the 2014 American-German romance/drama film
'Posthumous'. Set in Berlin, Germany, the film stars American actress and screenwriter Brit Marling and English actor Jack Huston.
The film debuted at the Zurich Film Festival on October 4, 2014, played in the United States at the Miami International Film Festival, and has been released worldwide.
Later that same year, Wang was awarded the Chaz and Roger Ebert Directing Fellowship at the Film Independent Spirit Awards. Also, she was chosen as a Film Independent Project Involve Directing Fellow.
One year later, Wang's fifteen-minute 2015 American drama short film 'Touch' premiered at the Palm Springs International ShortFest.
'Touch', an NBCU Short Film Festival finalist, was selected by the American Cinematheque for its Annual Focus on Female Directors, and won Best Drama at the Asians on Film Festival.
In May 2016, Wang wrote and narrated a story, "What You Don't Know", for the radio program This American Life.
Later that year, development began on a feature film based on the story with American film director, screenwriter, and producer Christopher John Weitz, who had heard it on the radio.
In 2017, Wang was chosen to participate in Sundance Institute’s FilmTwo Initiative, which provides guidance for filmmakers creating their second feature films.
Two years later in January, Wang's second feature film was also the film of which she is best known for writing, co-producing and directing.
This was the 2019 American/Chinese drama/comedy-drama film 'Bié Gàosù Tā' (lit. 'Don't Tell Her'). However, the film is best known as 'The Farewell'.
Billi's (Awkwafina in her first dramatic role) family returns to China under the guise of a fake wedding to stealthily say goodbye to their beloved matriarch -- the only person that doesn't know she only has a few weeks to live. for a family reunion to visit her dying grandmother.
The family has decided to keep the truth about her condition a secret from Nai Nai (Zhao Shuzhen) and sets up a wedding as a pretense for their reunion. Nai Nai is Mandarin for "grandmother".
Wang had based the film on her own grandmother's illness, which also included her family setting up a wedding as a pretense; the film opens with a title card stating Based on an actual lie.
The film is presented for the most part in Mandarin Chinese with English subtitles. It was filmed in the neighborhood where Wang's grandmother lived and Wang cast her actual great aunt Lu Hong to play herself in the film.
'The Farewell' premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was picked up for worldwide distribution by A24.
After its Sundance premiere, numerous publications listed 'The Farewell' as a standout at the festival, including Thrillist, Rolling Stone, and Variety.
In an IndieWire critics survey published after the festival, 'The Farewell' was voted Best Film and Best Screenplay and Wang was voted Best Director.
In January 2019, Variety named Wang one of ten "Directors to Watch." In an interview with the publication, she described her next project as "very grounded science fiction."
On July 12, 2019, 'The Farewell' opened in limited release in four U.S. theaters. On August 2, 2019, 'The Farewell' was released nationwide in the U.S.
The film opened to a gross of $351,330, averaging $87,833 per theater, surpassing the average of 'Avengers: Endgame' which averaged $76,601 in 4,662 theaters for a gross of $357,115,007 on its opening weekend. Om a budget of $3 million, 'The Farewell' grossed $22.5 million at the box office.
On December 4, 2019, the American Film Institute (AFI) announced that 'The Farewell' was one of that year's ten recipients of the 2019 AFI Awards for "films that are culturally and artistically representative" of 2019's "most significant achievements in the art of the moving image.
For her role as Billi, Awkwafina was awarded the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy on January 5, 2020.
'The Farewell' won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature at the 35th Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica, California on February 8, 2020.
Wang is currently pursuing a film adaptation of American short story writer Alexander Weinstein's collection of mind-bending, science fiction short stories, Children of the New World, which, according to Wang, "centers on questions of family."
On January 28, 2021 Apple released an eleven-minute short film called Nian written and directed by Wang, celebrating the 2021 Chinese New Year. The short film was shot in its entirety using an iPhone 12 Pro Max
According to her personal life, Wang is fluent in English, Mandarin Chinese and sometimes Spanish, Wang enjoys working with friends, both old and new.
She has been in a relationship with fellow African-American film director, screenwriter, and producer Barry Jenkins ('Moonlight') since 2018.
Wang has been active from 2005–present.
#borntodirect
@thumbelulu
@thefarewell
@flyingboxnews
@WomenInFilm
@a24
@AmericanFilmInstitute
@rottentomatoes
@theguardian
@Thrillist
@RollingStone
@Variety
@indiewire
@freethebid
@NPR
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