Anna Chi

Writer, Director, Producer

Anna Chi is a Chinese-born writer, director and producer whose wide-ranging career has spanned two continents and more than two decades. She has directed narrative features including Blindness, Dim Sum Funeral and Cicada Summer, the animated feature The Boxcar Children: Surprise Island and the short film Swimming. Chi has just finished her latest narrative feature The Disappearance of Mrs. Wu that Bob Berney’s Picturehouse has picked it up for sales/distribution.

As a producer, Chi has put together Chinese-U.S. co-financing and co-producing projects including the 2020 IMAX documentary Asteroid Hunter and the 2018 Sundance Audience Award-winning dramatic feature Burden, staring Forest Whitaker and Garrett Hedlund.

Chi’s writing credits include scripts for Miramax, John Woo’s Lion Rock Productions, Zoom Hunt International Productions (Taiwan) and Hsu Feng’s Tomson Films (Hong Kong). She also developed an animated feature script for DreamWorks and a theme park project for Disney World.

Chi spent her youth as a zealous member of China’s Red Guard, the student-led paramilitary social movement championed by Mao Zedong. She later earned a degree in literature and began working as a film editor and producer. Prohibited from telling the stories she wanted to in her home country, Chi took a leap of faith and immigrated to Los Angeles, where she graduated from UCLA’s film school with an MFA in directing.

After graduating she worked in various roles with acclaimed directors including Wayne Wang (Joy Luck Club), Oliver Stone (Nixon) and Chen Kaige (Killing Me Softly).

Chi currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband Doug and their two children, two cats, a dog and a chicken.