Mai Huyền Chi

A Vietnamese writer and filmmaker based in Ho Chi Minh City

#Practices

With a Master’s degree in screenwriting from The London Film School, Chi’s filmography as a writer includes three feature-length films produced in Vietnam and the UK. These days she is developing her feature-length directorial debut, ‘The River Knows Our Names‘. Besides fiction, Chi makes documentaries and dance films. Her first short doc ‘Down the Stream‘ (2015) was the finalist of Vimeo’s Best of the Year. ‘August Letters‘ (2021), her collaboration with visual artist Xuân Hạ, was selected amongst the best of Kyoto University’s Visual Documentary Project.

Chi’s practice extends to the intersections where moving images meet with installation and performative arts. Her works in this territory have been screened and exhibited in residencies and programs of Heritage Space, Cab HoiAn, Arabesque Dance Theater, The Fifth Wall Dance Film Festival, and Bar de Force.

With her diversified practice, Chi seeks ways to question and venture into the hidden corners of ‘the self’ and ‘identity’ in spatial, temporal, and social contexts. She is particularly interested in investigating collective history and consciousness through personal histories and intimate mental experiences.