Meet Iris Ma | Film Director & Writer

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

Hi Iris, how has your background shaped the person you are today?
I’m originally from Nanjing, China. My family moved to New York City when I was in high school. Both my parents are artists. My mom is a playwright and a professor teaching courses on Western literature and Theater, she is also a poet and had published several collection of poems. My dad is a illustrator and screenwriter, he had published several series of graphic novels teaching kids in China about creative writings. I grew up in a house hold full of books and stories. When I was little, mom would read me theater plays before I go to bed, and my dad introduced me to films from all over the world. When I was in elementary school, my parents and I would watch movies by Federico Fellini, Werner Herzog and Andrei Tarkovsky together. Although at that age, it’s impossible for me to fully understand those films, but the experience stimulated my interested in the process of filmmaking and awakened my passion for storytelling. The passion continued after my family moved to New York City. At the time, my mom would bring me to watch plays and musicals all over New York. We would constantly visit Broadway and off-Broadway theaters, and sometimes even those off-off Broadway theaters to enjoy some wacky and experimental productions. That is also the time when I started to write my own stories and create my own characters. My parents encouraged me to write, sometimes we would sit down together and they would read my stories and give me notes. When I was about to graduate high school, I decided to apply for film school. None of them were surprised about my decision because according to them, I quote “You were terrible at math, physics, biological and everything else that is slightly science related, what else do we expect you to study?” I am forever grateful to my non-typical Asian parents who had always been so encouraging and so patient to me. They are the reason that I am able to pursue a career in film directing.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Thanks to the influence of my parents, I always had a huge interest in theater and the more experimental side of filmmaking. During my undergraduate studies, I made a 50-minute-long experimental film named “The Honor Among Thieves” (2019), based on a vernacular Chinese short story written in the 1600s.

The film was a collage of different art forms and was heavily inspired by traditional Chinese Beijing Opera, Georges Méliès’s silent films, as well as Modern and Contemporary Art. This film won the Best Experimental Film Jury Award at Xining FIRST International Film Festival (2019) and was an Official Selection at International Film Festival Rotterdam (2019) and Malaysia Seashorts Festival (2020). It also received the Award for Excellence at Tokyo Image Forum Film Festival (2020) and was screened at dozens of film festivals and universities all over the world.

However, even after what I consider a successful festival run, I still found it very hard to find work, let alone funding for my next film. Frankly, there just isn’t enough audience for experimental films, and very few producers and production companies are willing to invest in an experimental film director to produce something that has no commercial viability.

At that time, I also graduated from college. For the first time in my life, I felt confused and stuck, not knowing where to go or what to do next. Then suddenly, Covid hits the world. My family and I decided to temporarily move back to China to stay closer to my grandma and my aunt. During the Covid lockdown, I decided to learn more about the narrative and commercial side of filmmaking. I enrolled in the graduate program for film directing at UCLA. However, because of the pandemic, the entire first year was taught remotely through online courses. Students had to make films with dolls at home. The situation was frustrating, but it also gave me more time to apply for film grants and prepare for my next film. In the summer, when the Covid lockdown was finally lifted in my city, I was ready to film.

In the next four months, I made my first feature film named “Who Is Afraid of Writing Class.” It’s a children’s comedy film based on my personal experience as a kid studying in China. The film continued the artistic style of my previous experimental film. It was inspired by Charlie Chaplin’s comedies, the French New Wave films, and old Chinese films from the ’60s and ’70s. However, this time, the story is much more narrative and accessible to a general audience.

Due to the lack of funding available during the Covid period, the film was made on a very tight budget. I was producing, directing, and ADing at the same time. My team of 12 people, including my dad (who was also the main actor, writer, and production designer of this film), my aunt (the UPM), and my friends (who volunteered to help out for free) had to handle everything ourselves—from bigger tasks like location and equipment rentals to smaller things like crafty and catering. Each person was doing ten tasks at the same time. By the end of the production, everyone looked like they had been run over by a pack of elephants.

Looking back, it was an exhausting, bizarre, but also amazing four months. Most of the time, I was stuck in a classroom in an abandoned school which we rented and repainted, with 30 elementary school kids who were screaming and yelling all the time. Due to a lack of budget, we weren’t able to hire enough professional child actors, so most of the young actors were children of my family friends and dad’s students. These non-actor kids would scream and run around the classroom at every chance they got. Some days, I wanted to kill them and then kill myself. Other days, I was so touched by their creativity, and their innocence and kindness would always bring tears to my eyes.

The film has just received The Film Public Screening Permit from China’s Film Administration, and I’m hoping to bring it to theaters in China next summer. We have also started our festival run and already received our first nomination at Fribourg International Film Festival in Switzerland as part of the International Competition: Feature Film Category.

After finishing the production of “Who Is Afraid of Writing Class,” I returned to the U.S. and finally started my in-person study at UCLA. During my time at UCLA, I directed several short films focusing on the Asian community in the U.S. However, I always wanted to tell more interesting and even wacky stories of Asian communities in non-traditional narrative ways and showcase vivid and colorful portraits of interesting Asian female characters outside the identity of daughters, mothers, or grandmas.

Thus, for my thesis film, I wrote a story that had been in my mind for a very long time with the influence of my grandmas and what the Asian community faced during the pandemic. The film is called “Chowmein Holiday,” and it is about two Asian elderly women’s crime-ridden road trip across California after deciding to abandon lifestyles defined by social norms. It’s a story about discovering cultural identity and heritage as well as overcoming age, gender, and Asian stereotypes.

During the production of this film, I worked with an almost entirely female key crew. It was a very difficult production. The entire filming took 10 days, and the majority of the shoot happened in the deserts of Lancaster and Mojave. When you are filming in a remote location like the desert, there are so many uncontrollable factors such as the heat, the wind, the quickly fading sun, not to mention the rattlesnakes that come out at night. But I was lucky to have a team of hardworking and dedicated crew members who helped me overcome every difficult situation we encountered. Even though the majority of them were film students or recent graduates, everyone showcased their professionalism, and I am forever grateful to this team.

If there is one thing I’ve learned along my way as a director, it is: always value your cast and crew members. Filmmaking is not a one-person job. While everyone else on the set is working hard to bring the vision of the director to life, the last thing the director should do is be an asshole. I understand that directing is a stressful job—it feels like you are carrying the entire world on your shoulders, and if you trip, it could mean the end of the world. Trust me, I know this feeling; I’ve been there all the time. However, every time I want to start yelling or throw a tantrum, I remind myself that communication is key to solving issues, not throwing things on the ground. A director who can’t control their temper or disrespects their crew members is not meant to work in this position.

Through my artistic journey, I’ve learned that every challenge is an opportunity in disguise. The unpredictability of filmmaking—the long nights, the tight budgets, the laughter from children, and even the rattlesnakes in the desert—each moment has shaped me and my work. If my journey has taught me anything, it’s that passion, resilience, and the power of community are indispensable.

Through the combination of the traditional and the experimental, the narrative and the abstract, the art house and commercial, I strive to tell stories that not only entertain but provoke thought and reflect diverse perspectives. I want my films to not only pushing the boundaries of art forms but also the stereotypical boundaries that the society drew for colored people.

“Chowmein Holiday” is currently at it’s post production stage. I am hoping to finish it soon and bring it to the audience before the end of this summer. Please stay toned to it!

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Growing up in a Chinese family, I would consider the most important part of my culture is food. If my best friend is visiting LA, I would definitely bring them to the best restaurants and bars in town, including the Thai town and Thai Night Market in Hollywood , Alhambra and Pasadena for authentic Chinese food, and the Historic Filipinotown to find amazing dinuguan and Abodo.

I would also cook for them at my place. Not to brag, I am actually a really good chef mastering cuisines from French to Japanese, Korean to Italian, Chinese to Mediterranean. We will spend nights cooking at home, making food and desserts even better than those severed in restaurants. I am willing to making anything they want to eat as long as they wash the dishes in the end.

We will also be watching movies together, from commercial films showing at AMC to the old indie and arthouse films showing at American Cinematheque. After the movies, we will drive to the Venice beach at take a walk along the water. At sunset, we can visit the Griffith Observatory and stay for the evening to Stargaze.

We will spend the next few days visiting every museum in town: The Getty Center, LACMA, The Broad, MOCA, etc.

If they still have the energy during the last few days of the trip, we can go to the Universal Studios and Disney, because, hey, who doesn’t like theme parks.

In the end, before they leave, I would take them to Hsi Lai Buddhist Temple in Arcadia Heights and I will pray that they can have a safe trip back home.

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 want to dedicate my shoutout to my parents, my aunt and my grandma who encouraged me to pursue a career as film director.

Instagram: @lanhua_ma, @chowmeinholidayfilm

Other: IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10767540/

Image Credits
Photos taken by Ray Chang and Fribourg International Film Festival