Filmmaker Ruby Yang has worked on a range of feature and documentary films exploring Chinese themes as director, producer, and editor. She won an Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject for The Blood of Yingzhou District in 2007. She is also known for her feature documentary Citizen Hong Kong and the award-winning documentary My Voice, My Life.
With filmmaker Thomas F. Lennon, Yang founded the Chang Ai Media Project in 2003 to raise HIV/AIDS awareness in China. Since then, hundreds of millions of Chinese viewers have seen its documentaries and public service announcements. Together they made a trilogy of short documentary films about modern China, including The Blood of Yingzhou District, which won an Oscar, Tongzhi in Love, and The Warriors of Qiugang, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject in 2011.
Her feature documentary My Voice, My Life was named one of “Hong Kong’s five most notable films of 2014” by the Wall Street Journal. Her 2016 documentary In Search of Perfect Consonance received the Excellence in Filmmaking Award at the Sedona International Film Festival. Her 2018 mid-length documentary Ritoma follows the nomads of the Amdo region as they navigate the collision of tradition and modernity. In May 2019, she received the Artist of the Year in Film at the Hong Kong Arts Development Awards.
From 2015-2019, she headed the Hong Kong Documentary Initiative at HKU, aiming to nurture the next generation of documentary filmmakers in the region. Yang is a member of the Directors Guild of America and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. A complete listing of her films is on IMDB.
