ABOUT LILI
Lili Gu (she/her) is a West Coast-based filmmaker, poet, and aspiring mixed media artist. She is passionate about exploring justice, liberation, and the human condition through storytelling. Her projects work to uncover language away from the white gaze, speaking truth to power on themes of Chinese American assimilation, queerness, and intergenerational strength. She makes art as an act of love—toward visions of an imagined future in which all humans can not just survive, but thrive.
Lili trained under the mentorship of pioneering vérité documentarian Marina Goldovskaya. She has been the recipient of the Mary Pickford Award, the Adobe Production Premium Award, the Hollywood Post Alliance Scholarship, the Edie and Lew Wasserman Film Production Fellowship, and the Edna and Yu-Shan Han Endowed Award, among others. Her films have received numerous festival accolades, screening internationally and on television networks such as PBS.
PROJECTS
HAIRCUT
Documentary / installation | Ongoing
Don't Give Up
2024
Discarded clay trimmings, tears, underglaze, glaze
LOVE DOC
Documentary / installation | Ongoing
We Don't Just Matter In Death
Documentary | 2022 | TRT 9:22
Producer, Writer, Director, Editor
BIPOC Excellence in Ultimate
Highlight Reel | 2020 | TRT 4:25
Producer, Editor
The Sky Is Red
Documentary | on hold
Producer, Writer, Director
Experiment
Experimental | 2016 | TRT 3:30
Producer, Writer, Director, Editor
Finalist, Sight of Sound International Film Competition (2016)
Featured on the Dallas-area PBS television show Frame of Mind (2016)
Official Selection, First Friday Film Festival (2016)
Official Selection, Festival Internacional de Cortometrajes Independientes (2017)
Official Selection, NXMW Micro-Budget Film Festival (2017)
Official Selection, Silk Road International Film Festival (2017)
Official Selection, Cine City (2017)
Official Selection, International Peace and Film Festival (2017)
All-Star Ultimate Tour: The Documentary
Documentary | 2016 | TRT 1:38:16
Associate Producer
Not Yet, But Soon
Documentary | 2015 | TRT 45:18
Producer, Writer, Director, Editor
Fly on the Wall
Documentary | 2014 | TRT 30:22
Producer, Writer, Director, Editor
What Do You Actually Feel?
Experimental | 2013 | TRT 1:41
Producer, Writer, Director, Editor
Stopstart
Narrative | 2012 | TRT 4:00
Producer, Writer, Director, Editor
Official Selection, UCLA Film Festival (2013)
For Andy
Documentary | 2012 | TRT 34:31
Producer, Writer, Director, Editor
Best Documentary, UCLA Film Festival (2013)
Joel and Milo
Narrative | 2011 | TRT 4:28
Producer, Writer, Director, Editor
Two Monkeys Hugging
Narrative | 2011 | TRT 4:09
Producer, Writer, Director, Editor
Brother
Documentary | 2011 | TRT 13:14
Producer, Writer, Director, Editor
The End
Narrative | 2009 | TRT 4:19
Producer, Writer, Director, Editor
Falling and Filling
Narrative | 2009 | TRT 10:45
Producer, Writer, Director, Editor
Distance
Documentary | 2008 | TRT 3:14
Producer, Writer, Director, Editor
PRESS
Hugo Fellows Reading, 05/2023
Sin The Fields interview, 7/2020
DiscNW's The Greatest interview, 11/2019
The Ultimate Podcast interview, 01/2019
The Upline Cut interview, 11/2017
Skyd Magazine essay, 11/2017
NPR photography feature, 04/2015
CONTACT
(Photo credit: Sam Hotaling)