S. Leo Chiang

Introduction (2-3 lines)

S. Leo Chiang is a Peabody Award-winning & Emmy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker whose previous works include Asian Americans (PBS Primetime), Our Time Machine (Gotham Award nomination; Best Cinematography, Tribeca Film Festival; PBS POV), Mr. Cao Goes to Washington (Inspiration Award at the Full Frame Film Festival), A Village Called Versailles (PBS Independent Lens), To You Sweetheart, Aloha (PBS broadcast) and One + One (CINE Golden Eagle Award).

S. Leo Chiang is a filmmaker based in San Francisco and Taipei. His most recent film, Our Time Machine, is nominated for an Emmy and the Gotham Awards, and played at over 75 film festivals worldwide. In 2020, he directed two episodes of the Peabody-winning 5-part PBS series, Asian Americans. His previous films include the Emmy Award-nominated A Village Called Versailles, Out Run, Mr. Cao Goes to Washington, and To You Sweetheart, Aloha. Leo’s work has received support from the Sundance Documentary Fund, the Tribeca Film Institute, and ITVS. He has been a Sundance-Time Warner Fellow, a Rockwood JustFilms Fellow, and a Co-Chair of New Day Films. He has served as a mentor/trainer for the Hot Docs CrossCurrent Fellowship, the CNEX Chinese Documentary Forum, and the CAAM Fellowship. He is the co-founder of A-Doc, the Asian American Documentary Network, and a documentary branch member of the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences.

Leo also collaborates with other filmmakers both as an editor (True-Hearted Vixen, POV 2001; Recalling Orange County, PBS/VOCES 2006) and as a cameraman (United in Anger, MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight 2012; Ask Not, Independent Lens 2009; The Tailenders, POV 2006).

New Day Films by S. Leo Chiang

Awards & Accolades

2021 - Peabody Award
2011 & 2021 - National Emmy®-Award nominations
2019 - Grantee, Creative Capital
2017 to Present - Member, Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences
2017 - Fellow, Rockwood/Ford JustFilms Fellowship
2014, Artist-in-Residence, Northwestern University Kaplan Institute
2013, Sundance-Time Warner Fellow, Sundance Documentary Film Program
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