Jess X. Snow
Directing
Biography
Jess X. Snow is a Chinese-Canadian filmmaker, multi-disciplinary artist and author envisioning futures where the most marginalized of land and life is sacred. They bring their background in murals, visual art and poetry into their sensorial films which bring the inner healing journeys of queer Asian migrants to the big screen. Recently named one of Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces of Independent Film, they have written and directed four short films currently streaming on the Criterion Channel and the National Film Board of Canada. They previously screened at university classrooms and film festivals worldwide: including BFI London, International Film Festival Rotterdam, BlackStar, Ann Arbor, and Durban (Special Mention of the Jury). They are a Film Independent Fast Track fellow for their debut narrative feature, WHEN THE RIVER SPLIT OPEN. Recently, they served as a producer and cinematographer on WE WERE THE SCENERY (Sundance Short Film Jury Award for Non-Fiction) currently shortlisted for the 98th Academy Awards and named a best short of the year by Vimeo Staff Picks and Film Comment. They received their MFA in screenwriting and directing from NYU. Specializing in cross-cultural and multi-lingual storytelling, their films have taken them across North America and to China, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Prior to film, over the last decade they created dozens of community murals that unveil the emotional landscapes of social movements.
Known For
In the desert of the Payahuunadü valley (the name means “land of flowing water”) of California, a father performs butoh for the first time in front of his former prodigy rock climber child. They speak to each other through their bodies to find a way to heal their relationship and the land.
Tamashi
In 1975, soon after the end of the Vietnam War, Hoa Thi Le and Hue Nguyen Che fled the country on a small boat. After nine days at sea, they docked in the Philippines, where they were utilized as background extras for “Apocalypse Now.”
We Were the Scenery
In the rural south, a Black boy tries to fly.
Cherish
After her mother's traditional Chinese medicine shop is vandalized, a young botanist draws on the resilience of her local community and the healing remedies of her ancestors to contend with her deepest anxieties.
Roots That Reach Toward The Sky
Tomás, a gay teenager from a small beach town in Chile, lives daydreaming at the beat of pop-music. During a summer day he sees his crush again, Benjamín, and encouraged by his music he jumps forward to the adventure of burgeoning first love, facing his fears and risking leaving the safe refuge of his musical and colorful world.
Fervor
A non-binary Chinese-American drag queen returns to their home town to confront their estranged father about the childhood memories that continues to haunt them.
Little Sky
Chronicles the extraordinary journey of the legendary Nobuko Miyamoto – a dancer, singer, and activist driven by a lifelong passion for social justice and community engagement.
Nobuko Miyamoto: A Song In Movement
After a hurricane ravages his hometown, a grieving man breaks into an off-limits cemetery to rescue the lost remains of his brother in order to give him a proper burial.
In Between Storms
After surviving sexual assault, a queer Chinese-American woman struggles to tell her immigrant mother why she left school. As she disassociates, she develops the ability to teleport and must learn how to control her powers.
Safe Among Stars
As rising sealevels threaten locations touched by the Pacific Ocean in Hawaiʻi, the Philippines, China, and North America, four women give offerings of music, poetry and heartfelt testimonial to preserve the volcano, ocean, air and land for future generations.
Afterearth
At the end of an overdue family reunion in their ancestral land, Rain, a non-binary Chinese American discovers a family secret that launches them on a surreal odyssey to seek out the truth about their estranged father—whose disappearance is entwined with the extinction of the Yangtze River dolphin.
When the River Split Open
Suki Terada Ports is an unstoppable Japanese American NYC elder who has been a tireless activist for the AAPI Community for decades. She has fought for Civil Rights in the 1960s, school integration, prison reform, female healthcare equality, LGBTQ+ rights, HIV/AIDS prevention and support, before the AAPI community would even recognize it. In this film, we follow Suki as she goes from her neighborhood in Harlem where she’s lived for over 87 years to a lunch at her friend’s apartment in downtown. A conversation of action, identity, and belonging emerges between three generations of AAPI activists and storytellers.
They Call Me Suki
In a post-apocalyptic future, a migrant latinx man is on life support from the last plant on Earth. With only memories of his mother to guide him, he must find a way to preserve life on Earth.
Motherland
When a young artist visits the studio of a charismatic artist to get her first tattoo, she is forced to confront a shared cultural secret that awakens the burgeoning force inside of her.
I Wanna Become the Sky
RETRIEVAL is a lyrical short film that explores the process of a soul retrieval in the aftermath of sexual assault - the spiritual undertaking of bringing back a part of your soul that has been traumatically separated. Holding the line between magic, fantasy, and grounded reality, the film asks the question: what sight of miraculous intervention do we need to conduct to seam together such a violent rupture?
Retrieval
What seems to be a burgeoning romance between two Indigenous people takes an unexpected turn in this bold and thrilling blend of the satirical and the sinister by writer-director ishkwaazhe Shane McSauby.
The Beguiling
An African-American girl, obsessed with her hair, seeks guidance in a small fish when her mother forces her to go underwater.
Be A Fish
In a dark bedroom, when Hollis uses breath work to soothe herself, she suddenly is transported to a desert where she encounters her wounded inner child. Over the course of a sunset, they reconcile their lost relationship.
Subliminal
An Indigenous man takes a Happy Thanksgiving wish very very personally.
Happy Thanksgiving
About the relationship between a queer Vietnamese-American teen and their Vietnamese refugee mother.