Yan Yan Mak (Man Yuen-Yan) is a

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

–based female award-winning director.

Biography

She graduated from the

Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA) is a provider of tertiary education in Hong Kong. Located near the north coast of Wan Chai on Hong Kong Island, the main campus also functions as a venue for performances. Béthanie (Hong Ko ...

; as a student, Yan Yan worked for the film industry as an assistant director, production manager, art director, and wardrobe designer. Her graduation short film ''Snapshots'' won the Distinguish Award at the International Short Film & Video Awards of

in 1998. After directing several short dramas for

Radio Television Hong Kong Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) is the public broadcasting service of Hong Kong. GOW, the predecessor to RTHK, was established in 1928 as the first broadcasting service in Hong Kong. As a government department under the Commerce and Economic ...

, she established her own production company Dragonfly J Ltd., to make her film. Her debut feature film, ''Gege'' (''Brother''), although using a very limited budget, a small crew, and a non-actors cast, was awarded the

FIPRESCI Award The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI, short for ''Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique'') is an association of national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the worl ...

at the 25th

Hong Kong International Film Festival The Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF) is one of Asia's oldest international film festivals. Founded in 1976, the festival features different movies and filmmakers from different countries, and takes place in Hong Kong. HKIFF screens ...

, the POVEGLIA Award at the International Week of Film Critics of the 58th

Venice Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival (, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival held in Venice, Italy. It is the world's oldest film festival and one of the ...

, the Woosuk Award at

Jeonju International Film Festival Jeonju International Film Festival (JIFF, ) is an Asian film festival based in South Korea. It was launched in 2000 as a non-competitive film festival seeking to introduce independent and experimental films to the general public and focusing ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

, as well as the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the

International Film Festival Bratislava The Bratislava International Film Festival (also known as Bratislava IFF) is an international film festival established in 1999 and held annually in Bratislava, Slovakia. Apart from the international competition programme, it also regularly featu ...

and

Fribourg International Film Festival The Fribourg International Film Festival (FIFF) is an annual film festival in Fribourg, Switzerland. It is focused on selected films from Asia, Africa and Latin America. The Grand Prize is the main award of the Fribourg International Film Festival. ...

2001. Her second film ''

Butterfly Butterflies are winged insects from the lepidopteran superfamily Papilionoidea, characterized by large, often brightly coloured wings that often fold together when at rest, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The oldest butterfly fossi ...

,'' based on a short story by Chen Xue, was chosen as the Opening Film at Venice Film Festival Critics Week (La Biennale di Venezia), the Hong Kong Gay & Lesbian Film and Video Film Festival 2004 and

Créteil International Women's Film Festival The International Women's Film Festival, formerly known as Créteil International Women's Film Festival (in French Festival International de Films de Femmes (FIFF); formerly Festival international de films de femmes de Créteil), also known si ...

in France 2005. The film won the Best Feature award at the

Paris Lesbian and Feminist Film Festival The Paris Feminist and Lesbian Film Festival (French: Festival International du Film Lesbien et Féministe de Paris) is a women-only film festival founded in Paris, France, in 1989. The festival is organized by Cineffable, an association dedicated ...

. Tian Yuan was awarded as the Best New Artist at the

Hong Kong Film Awards The Hong Kong Film Awards (HKFA; ), founded in 1982, is an annual film awards ceremony in Hong Kong. The ceremonies typically take place in April, and have mostly been held at the Grand Theatre of the Hong Kong Cultural Centre since 1991. The a ...

in 2005. The film was also nominated at the Taiwan

Golden Horse Awards The Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival and Taipei Golden Horse Awards () are a film festival and associated awards ceremony held annually in Taiwan. The festival and ceremony were founded in 1962 by the Government Information Office of the Repub ...

in 2004 for Best Adapted Screenplay (Yan Yan Mak) and Best Supporting Actor (

Eric Kot Eric Kot Man-fai is a Hong Kong singer and actor. Kot studied in California. He is the second-youngest of three brothers. He formed a comedic music duo with fellow DJ and comedian Jan Lamb called Softhard in the 1980s. He also runs a fashio ...

). Butterfly has been screened at the Hong Kong Retrospective, the Hong Kong Gay & Lesbian Film Festival 2019. Since 2005, after becoming a collaborator with Hong Kong

Cantopop Cantopop (a contraction of "Cantonese pop music") is a genre of pop music sung in Cantonese. Cantopop is also used to refer to the cultural context of its production and consumption. The genre began in the 1970s and became associated with Hon ...

singer

Denise Ho Denise Ho Wan-see (born 10 May 1977) is a Hong Kong-born Canadian Cantopop singer and actress. She is also a pro-democracy and Hong Kong human rights activist. In 2012, Ho came out as lesbian, the first mainstream Cantonese singer to do so. In ...

, Yan Yan has produced numerous music videos, music short films, and TV Commercials. ''The Scarlet Robe'' won the Best Drama in

BigScreen Festival The BigScreen Festival or BigScreen Italia is a film festival that focuses on Chinese and Italian cinema. It was first held in 2004 in Padua, Italy, but in 2006 moved to Kunming, Yunnan, China. BigScreen Asia '01 The first edition of Big Scree ...

, China 2007. They finished their first feature-length fil
''The Decameron'' (a documentary about madness, under the music project "10 Days in the Madhouse")
in 2009. Recently, Yan Yan has collaborated with

as her concert producer and director in
Reimagine Hong Kong
' (2015), ''Macpherson Woods'' (2015),
Dear Friend
'' (2016) an
On The Pulse Of Hocc Live 2018
She had also produced 'Galactica', a concert by a singer Endy Chow Kwok Yin in 2017/18. Yan Yan completed another featur
''Merry-Go-Round'' (''Dong Feng Po'')
in 2010 in Hong Kong. It was elected as the Best Chinese-Language Film by Film Critics China, nominated at The Hong Kong Film Award 2011 for the Best Cinematography Award, and won the Best Film Song Award
"Here to Stay" by Jun Kung
, won the Best Actress (

Ella Koon Ella Koon Yun-na (born 9 July 1979) is a former Hong Kong Cantopop singer and semi-retired actress. Biography Ella Koon was born in the French Polynesian island of Tahiti, and is of Hakka descent. She was raised in Hong Kong and attended high sch ...

) and the Best Actor (

Teddy Robin Kwan Wai Pang (; born 20 March 1945 in Guilin, Guangxi), known professionally as Teddy Robin (), is a Hong Kong English pop singer-songwriter, actor, and director and producer. He began his music career in mid 1960s when Hong Kong English pop ...

) at Australia Golden Koala Film Festival. Her other feature work
''The Great War'' (2013)
a documentary about Grasshopper x

Softhard Softhard is a Hong Konger rap duo from Hong Kong, consisting of DJ Hard " Jan Lamb" and MC Soft " Eric Kot". The rap duo is widely accredited for pioneering the hip hop act to achieve mainstream minor success during the early 1990s while on an in ...

Concert 2012, has had its Gala premiere at the

New York Asian Film Festival The New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) is a film festival held in New York City dedicated to the display of Asian film and culture. The New York Asian Film Festival generally features contemporary premieres and classic titles from Eastern Asia ...

2013 as also selected as the closing-film of the film festival. Yan Yan's latest work
'Sound Of Silence' (SOS)
is the Closing Film of th
6th Hong Kong Kids International Film Festival 2022 (KIFF)
and won numerous awards in film festivals worldwide.

Awards and honours

* Short film ''Snapshots'' 了了 won the Distinguish Award at the International Short Film & Video Awards of Hong Kong in 1998. * Advertising work 'Numbers' for The Women's Foundation has been awarded in the Film Craft section of AD STARS 2019 (Korea).

Filmography

Feature length, as Producer, Director, and Scriptwriter: * 2001 Brother (Gege) 哥哥 * 2004 Butterfly (Hudie) 蝴蝶 * 2006 August Story (Director’s Cut) 八月的故事 * 2008 The Decameron (Documentary) 十日談 * 2010 Merry-Go-Round (Dong Fung Po) 東風破 * 2013 The Great War (Da Zhan) 大戰 (Concert Documentary) * 2022 Sound Of Silence * 2024 Bric-A-Brac (Short) * 2024 I Have Arrived (Short)

Concerts

As Creative Director, Concert Producer, and Video Producer: * 2015 Reimagine HK18 (HK Elizabeth Stadium) * 2015 Reimagine Live in Macpherson Woods (MacPherson Stadium) * 2016 Dear Friend, (Hong Kong Coliseum) * 2017 Galactica (MacPherson Stadium) * 2018 Galactica Rerun (MacPherson Stadium) * 2018 On the Pulse Of HOCC Live 2018 (Hong Kong Science park) * 2022 The Flash Back Now Party, Josie & The Uni Boys (Star Hall, KITEC)

References

External links