BIO

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Mai Huyền Chi is a Vietnamese writer-director whose work explores memory, identity, and belonging, often centering voices and histories overlooked in dominant narratives.

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Responding to a world marked by division and ecological crisis, her recent projects aim to foster deeper human connections with land and water, employing participatory approaches that invite communities to tell and shape their own stories.​​

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Recent Work & Recognition

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In 2025, Chi completed 50 Years of Forgetting, a medium-length documentary commissioned by Al Jazeera. The film examines the legacy of the Vietnam War and the politics of memory and erasure. It reached over 100,000 views in its first ten days and has been screened internationally.

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Her short fiction debut The River Runs Still premiered at the New York Asian Film Festival in 2025. Her in-development feature The River Knows Our Names won the Tokyo Talents Award in 2024 and has been developed through labs and markets in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Europe.
 

 

Artistic Evolution
 

Chi's filmmaking journey began with Down the Stream (2015), a short documentary that became a finalist for Vimeo's Best of the Year, screened at Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, and was featured on 88Rising and Aeon Video.

 

Her practice has evolved toward participatory approaches that honor community knowledge and foster connections with place, creating collaborative processes where communities become active agents in shaping their own narratives.

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Screenwriting & Collaboration

 

As a screenwriter, Chi has contributed to three feature films: the Vietnamese box office hit My Mr. Wife (2018, Best Film, Golden Kite Awards), A Brixton Tale (UK, 2022, Cineuropa Award, Festival International du Film de Mons), and The Girl from Dak Lak (Vietnam–Spain, 2022, IndieLisboa nominee), which she also co-directed.

 

In 2023, she served as creative producer on WOMAN: PHỤ NỮ, an American documentary exploring Vietnamese women's identities during war and peace.

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Community Building 

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Chi is the founder of Cinema CNN (Cinema Con Nhà Nghèo), a grassroots screening series under A Sông Collective that supports independent Vietnamese cinema and encourages dialogue about the country’s past and future. Honored as “The Most Meaningful Project” of 2024 by Hanoi Grapevine, Cinema CNN collaborates with collectives across Southeast Asia, Australia, and Germany, fostering exchange between local and diasporic communities.
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Multidisciplinary Practice

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In addition to filmmaking, Chi’s practice spans installation, video art, writing, and performance. A former journalist and editor-in-chief at MSN Vietnam, she is also a published writer and photographer, and has taught at RMIT University Vietnam.
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