Meet Jinsui Song | Writer/Director & Editor

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

Hi Jinsui, can you tell us more about your background and the role it’s played in shaping who you are today?
Growing up in Shenzhen, China, I was captivated by Hong Kong movies and TVB series. This immersion sparked my interest in reading and writing stories from a young age, and I always envisioned myself becoming a novelist. The power of words, sentences, and paragraphs to create entire worlds on paper fascinated me. I would spend hours shaping, arranging, and reconstructing. However, as I grew older and moved to different places, I realized that writing alone wasn’t enough for me. There were moments in life when I experienced indescribable feelings. As a Cantonese woman, I often felt the limitations and constraints when sharing my stories in a different environment, in a different country, and in a different language. I yearned for something broader, more liberating—something that could represent the indescribable and bridge the gaps between languages and cultures.

Fortunately, I discovered cinema, and everything changed. In 2017, I earned my bachelor’s degree in screenwriting from Beijing Film Academy. This past June, I graduated from UCLA’s Directing MFA program. My second-year project, “Tequila Sunset,” was selected for this year’s CAAMFest and recently won Best Director and Best Performance at the DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival. Additionally, my thesis film, “Something Blue,” is supported by the Panavision New Filmmakers Program. I’m constantly humbled, and feel grateful and privileged to have the opportunity to tell my stories and pursue filmmaking.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Since graduating, I’ve been working as a freelance film editor. Editing allows me to collaborate with fellow talented filmmakers and contribute to the realization of their creative visions. While the creative process can be challenging, especially when the story is culturally or artistically distant from me, it has also deepened my appreciation for collaboration. I get the opportunity to immerse myself in and help construct worlds that are often outside of my own understanding.

In addition to my work as an editor, I’m also in the development of my next film project. I’m very proud of the community that my collaborators and I have built through the filming of my previous projects. As a Chinese female filmmaker, I’ll continue to make films for the Chinese/Chinese-American community and tell stories about the many facets of womanhood.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I’d love to start our day at UCLA, beginning from the south campus and strolling all the way up to the north. We can take our time and enjoy the serene atmosphere at the sculpture garden—it’s my favorite spot on campus. Afterward, we can grab a bite to eat on Sawtelle and then head over to Santa Monica before the food coma sets in. In the evening, we can either catch a screening at the Aero Theatre or unwind with a drink at a cozy spot.

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 didn’t truly understand the concept of ‘community’ until I entered the Directing MFA program at UCLA. Prior to that, I held the belief that when it came to filmmaking, the end product was all that mattered. I thought that to create ‘great’ movies, I needed to collaborate with the ‘best’ individuals I could find, based on their credentials and reputation alone. However, my perspective underwent a significant transformation during my four years in the program. This transformation was the result of collaborating with a diverse cohort, where the majority of students were women and non-binary people of color.

Through this experience, I came to appreciate filmmaking as more than just a creative process; it became a social practice. I learned that the ‘best’ collaborators are those who share my values and vision, rather than those with the most impressive credentials. My time at UCLA has shown me the power of a supportive community in the filmmaking world, and I would like to dedicate my shoutout to my wonderful cohort at UCLA.

Website: www.jinsuisong.com

Instagram: @jinsuisong