GOOD TALK WITH VIOLET DU FENG

Violet Du Feng is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker whose films provide nuanced, intimate and provocative perspectives to reflect on larger social issues. Violet’s work focuses on women’s rights; the insider’s look into where China is through the 13 films she has directed, produced and executive produced covering topics about education, elderly care, artificial intelligence, ethnic minorities, commercialization and cultural shifts over the past 20 years; and how to use documentaries to create social impact especially in developing countries. Her work has been featured in publications including New York Times, New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal and Vogue Magazine. Her latest award-winning film HIDDEN LETTERS premiered at 2022 Tribeca Film Festival, which explores gender equality against politics, Capitalism and cultural influences through a fascinating lens of an ancient and secret women-only language from China. Following two millennial women, this poignant film addresses the global roll back on women’s rights in an unexpected and deeply moving way. She directed the CPB/PBS special program Harbor from the Holocaust with music performed by Yo-yo Ma, which tells the rarely known story of nearly 20,000 Jewish refugees who fled Nazi-occupied Europe during WII to Shanghai. Violet is the producer of the award-winning documentary PLEASE REMEMBER ME about elderly care in China. She led the first documentary impact campaign with the film and created groundbreaking policy changes. Violet started her career by co-producing the Peabody and Emmy winning documentary Nanking. The film examines the Nanking Massacre committed in 1937 by the Japanese, which premiered at 2007’s Sundance Film Festival and broadcasted on HBO’s Cinemax.

Violet has been invited to speak at prestigious academic institutions including Stanford, UC Berkeley, Columbia, NYU, Hongkong University and Fudan University. She often gives speeches about documentary social impact campaigns at major events including Good Pitch, impact producer’s assemblies and Chinese documentary forums. Violet is the 2022 advisor of Sundance Producers Lab, an annual trainer at the Chinese CNEX Documentary Forum and the consulting programmer at Shanghai International Film Festival.