Meet Shuyue Su | Writer/Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Shuyue Su and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Shuyue, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
I grew up listening to bed time stories and reading fairy tales. I have always enjoyed seeing the world when I closed my eyes while listening or reading, everything becomes tangible in the imagination and I always felt closely connected to that fantasy world. However, in real world, I was bad at communication with words. I always feel isolated and unable to fit into any groups, so I started to put myself into journals, novels, essays… later I even escaped into my fantasy world that has expanded with watching Animes, TV and Movies.

Once I realized verbal communication is limited in any kind of social situations, video art became more as a savior for my personal expression. Luckily, I have found myself and my friends through this media which enlightened me creating a unique language to communicate to the world. Being a director, creating “fantasy” world in movies/tvs with friends and people who understand the limitation in real world, allow myself to preserve the innocence within humanity and create a bridge to challenge all kinds of boundaries in modern society.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I am a writer/director from Lanzhou, China. I am currently a 2nd year directing fellow at American Film Institute Conservatory, and a recent graduate of UC San Diego, with a BA in Visual Arts Media focusing on film production. Coming from a video art background, my works mix experimental and narrative storytelling and often focus on women’s social issues through a combination of surrealism and realism. My AFI thesis is a female empowerment short film that sets in China which I intended to open up more conversations about the potentials for feminism and liberation.

My journey to become a filmmaker is wild and fun. During my undergraduate, I was admitted to the college under one of the most challenging major – Neuroscience and Physiology. Later while attending all the classes, I realized my fantasy of being a cool doctor or a pharmacist is too naive with all the lab and restricted work ethic. Therefore I transferred major to Visual Arts, Media where I learned all kinds of entry level skills to film production, which ultimately helped me to understand my passion to pursue directing.

The diverse background helps me to keep a broad perspective for storytelling but also makes it hard to get into the industry right away without a clear focus to begin with. The lesson is definitely to keep learning while making, and to treat every challenge as opportunity, even to turn life difficulty into treasure for recreating authentic experience in making movies.

As a normal average person who spent a long time believing myself as something special and extraordinary, now having on opened perspective is what values the most to me in my works, I wish to tell all the ordinary life stories with extraordinary techniques to help more people see the beauty in normal life.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Eat – KTOWN and San Gabriel (one of my hometown noodle place – 1919 Lanzhou Beef Noodle) Drink – don’t really drink but would recommend cafes in Art District
Visit – Getty Museum reminds my favorite

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I went to University of California, San Diego, under major Visual Arts Media.

One of the most influential professor for me is Professor Babette Mangolte who introduced me French New Wave and Feminism in filmmaking.

The other influential professor for me is Professor Dino Dinco who introduced me Experimental video installation.

Later I got into American Film Institute for directing discipline.

One of the most influential professor for me is Professor Rob Spera who introduced me the core of directing.

The last but not least huge love are from my parents who supported every decision for my artistic career.

Website: https://ssywasdreaming.com/

Instagram: ss._______.y

Image Credits
Xiangyu Dong