Meet Alex Jiang. An alumna who graduated from the USC School of Cinematic Arts in Fall 2021 with a Bachelor of Arts in Film and Television Production
… and four awards and three nominations, for a film she worked on during her time at USC.
During her senior year, Alex was supposed to be a producer for a class project movie, in collaboration with other students in her cohort. But when the COVID-19 pandemic started in the early months of 2020, the Chinese native left Los Angeles and went back home for a year and decided to work on a project of her own.
When the Tide Rises is a short film written, directed, produced and edited by Alex. It is about a lesbian couple living in China, who have just adopted a child and are going through the reality of starting a family in a resistant environment. Through a story that tackles the topics of same-sex relationships, family and love, Alex wanted to meaningfully capture the dynamics of the Asian LGBTQ community today, and how it may be negatively perceived in her country.
The film was well-received and Alex received four awards from international and regional film festivals and institutions:
- Best First-Time Director at the Tokyo International Short Film Festival
- Best Director at the Seoul International Short Film Festival
- Best First-Time Filmmaker at the Independent Shorts Awards
- Narrative Award at the Fine Cut Festival of Films
She was also recognized with official selections at the Cannes Short Film Festival as well as the Taiwan International Queer Film Festival. As if that was not enough, she was also a semi-finalist at the Rhode Island International Film Festival.
While her passion lies mainly in directing, Alex is making sure that she is gaining experience across the film industry from the creative work to the administrative side. She is currently working at an entertainment company as a management intern while also working on her next film.
Believe it or not, Alex was not really into watching movies as a young girl growing up in Shenzhen. “For some reason, the younger me was terrified by screens”, she said laughingly. She remembers watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy with her mom one summer, and being fascinated by the production. This is what sparked her desire to explore the world of cinema, by watching more movies during her middle school years. By the time she reached high school, she thought that studying film would make sense to her as she already enjoyed writing and photography; she thought film was actually “the perfect combination of the two mediums”.
When asked if she had any advice for international students currently enrolled in the Film and TV Production program at USC, Alex said “don’t be scared, say what you want to say, do what you want to do and tell the stories that you think are most authentic to you. That will be enough.” She believes that being an international student automatically gives the person a different perspective, and she definitely used that to her advantage as an artist.
This mentality helped her grow and succeed as a filmmaker.
Check out the trailer to her award-winning movie When the Tide Rises, and keep an eye out for the name Alex Jiang. Her new film The Story of This Life is currently in the works and its script has already won the best student script at the Los Angeles Script Awards!
Written by: Tamara Amhaz, OIS Communications Editor, Master of Communication Management, USC Annenberg 2022