Women Behind the Scenes Spotlight: Lulu Wang

By Rueben | January 29, 2020

Today’s Women Behind the Scenes spotlight is focused on director, writer and producer Lulu Wang.

Lulu was born in Beijing, China, but her family immigrated to Miami when she was 6 years old. She went on to graduate from Boston College, completing a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in creative writing.

She learned filmmaking through work-for-hire gigs and then in 2008, not that long after she moved to Los Angeles, she interned for a producer alongside Swiss filmmaker Bernadette Burgi, who produced the film Posthumous, which Lulu wrote the screenplay and directed in 2014. Between that time, Lulu directed multiple web shorts and music videos.

Posthumous debuted at the Zurich Film Festival and played at the Miami International Film Festival in 2014. That same year, Lulu was awarded a directing fellowship at the Film Independent Spirit Awards and was chosen as a Film Independent Project Involve Directing Fellow.

She followed that up with a short film called Touch, which she wrote and directed, that premiered at the Palm Springs International ShortsFest. Touch was also a finalist at the NBCU Short Film Festival; she was selected by American Cinematheque for its Annual Focus on Female Directors and won Best Drama at the Asians on Film Festival.

Last year, Lulu’s second feature film The Farewell premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and quickly became a standout. The film follows a struggling New York City artist, portrayed by Awkwafina [who has since won a Golden Globes Award for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy], who travels to China for a family reunion to visit her dying grandmother. The film was actually based on Lulu’s own grandmother’s illness. The Farewell also won a Golden Globes Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The film has been lauded and nominated for countless other awards, winning a Gotham Award for Best Feature, as well as the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute Awards [among others]. It should also be noted that Lulu is a classically trained pianist and is featured on the soundtrack to The Farewell.

Her next project is a film adaptation of the Alexander Weinstein short story “Children of the New World,” which she has described as “very grounded science fiction.”

Lulu splits her time between New York and Los Angeles.

Special Note: Last year NiceGirl Lisa attended the Atlanta Film Festival where The Farewell was the film featured during opening night and actress Awkwafina and director Lulu Wang made an appearance. During the appearance Lulu shared that she and Awkwafina both studied abroad in Beijing and Awkwafina shared she almost didn’t get the part but once Lulu saw her audition tape, she knew that the actress was perfect to play Billi.

Check out the pictures below:

[Photo Credit: NiceGirl Lisa]