Cathy Yan | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Yan in 2020 | |||||||
| Born | 1986 (age 37–38) | ||||||
| Nationality | American | ||||||
| Alma mater | |||||||
| Occupation | Filmmaker | ||||||
| Years active | 2010–present | ||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 阎羽茜 | ||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 閻 羽 茜 | ||||||
| |||||||
Cathy Y. Yan is a Chinese-born American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Her films include the comedy-drama film Dead Pigs (2018) and Birds of Prey (2020), the eighth installment of the DC Extended Universe.
Yan was born in China and raised in Northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C. While her family was living in China, Yan's father was given a visa to study sociology in the U.S. Two years later her mother left for America, and Yan remained in China with her grandparents. At age four she was reunited with her parents in America. [1]
As a child, Yan grew up with various creative outlets courtesy of her relatives and "deeply creative father". [2] By age 8, Yan was the kid carrying around a video camera, eager to express herself through art and through dancing as a choreographer. [2] She moved to Hong Kong when she was fourteen years old, [2] where she attended high school. [1]
She graduated with an A.B. from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in 2008 after completing an 133-page-long senior thesis, titled "Can the Mouse Byte the Paper Tiger? Internet-mediated Social Movements and Political Change in China", under the supervision of Lynn T. White. [3] She later graduated in 2016 from New York University's MBA/MFA dual degree program, where she studied at both the Stern School of Business and the Tisch School of the Arts. [4] [5] [6] [7]
Yan worked as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal [8] in New York, Hong Kong and Beijing before turning to filmmaking. [6]
After writing and directing several short films, Yan also shot a web-series and content for brands such as Armani, Subway, Spotify and The Innocence Project. [9] By 2018, Yan made her feature debut with Dead Pigs . [1] The film was inspired by the 2013 Huangpu River dead pigs incident, in which 16,000 dead pigs were found floating down the Huangpu River. [8] Funded by Chinese investors, Yan shot the dark comedy in Shanghai with a bilingual crew then completed the film in New York; director Jia Zhangke executive produced. [8] Dead Pigs premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won a Special Jury Award for ensemble acting. [10] Yan removed 12 minutes from the film in its wider February 2021 release on the streaming platform Mubi. [11]
In April 2018, Yan was selected to direct the Harley Quinn DC Extended Universe superhero film Birds of Prey , based on the comic of the same name. The film was released on February 7, 2020 to positive reviews. [12] Margot Robbie starred and co-produced and Christina Hodson wrote the script. [8] Yan was the second woman and the first Asian woman to direct a DC film (or any US superhero film). [13]
As of January 2020 [update] , Yan is working on directing and producing A24's [14] film adaptation of Sour Heart , a collection of short stories by Jenny Zhang. Yan will co-write the script alongside Zhang for the autobiographical coming-of-age story about the immigrant experience of a young girl who moved from Shanghai to New York in the 90s. [15]
In February 2021, Yan started developing an adaptation of Rachel Khong's short story, The Freshening. FilmNation Entertainment and Ali Wong were set to produce the feature, with Yan writing and directing. [16]
In 2021, Yan directed an episode of the HBO drama series Succession called "The Disruption", in season three, episode three, for which she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series. [17]
Yan's cinematic influences include Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou. Since Yan's father was a big fan of the nineties era of Chinese cinema, Yan expanded into East Asian art-house cinema, which included Wong Kar-wai. [11] Including American cinema, Yan appreciates the works of Robert Altman and Paul Thomas Anderson. Yan considers Dead Pigs as "a marriage of the American indie and classic Chinese indie tones she grew up with." [11]
Yan is married; her husband works in the restaurant industry. [18] Both Yan and her husband are currently based in New York.[ citation needed ]
Short film
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Phishing | No | No | Yes |
| 2013 | Last Night | Yes | Yes | No |
| 2014 | Dinosaur Rider | No | No | Yes |
| Entropy | No | No | Yes | |
| Of Tooth and Time | No | No | Yes | |
| 2015 | Humpty | No | No | Yes |
| 2016 | Down River | Yes | Yes | No |
| According to My Mother | Yes | Yes | No | |
| 2017 | Groomed | No | No | Yes |
Feature film
| Year | Title | Director | Writer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Dead Pigs | Yes | Yes |
| 2020 | Birds of Prey | Yes | No |
Television
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Succession | Episode: "The Disruption" |
Cathy Yan on Indie Wire
Cathy Yan on Princeton Alumni Weekly
Cathy Yan on The New York Times
Harley Quinn is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. She was created by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm for Batman: The Animated Series as a henchwoman for the Joker, and debuted in its 22nd episode, "Joker's Favor", on September 11, 1992. While intended to appear in one episode, Quinn became a recurring character within the DC Animated Universe (DCAU) as the Joker's sidekick and love interest, and was adapted into DC Comics' canon seven years later, beginning with the one-shot Batman: Harley Quinn #1. Quinn's origin story features her as a former psychologist at Gotham City's Arkham Asylum who was manipulated by and fell in love with the Joker, her patient, eventually becoming his accomplice and lover. The character's alias is a play on the stock character Harlequin from the 16th-century Italian theater commedia dell'arte.
The Birds of Prey is a superhero team featured in several American comic book series, miniseries, and special editions published by DC Comics since 1996. The book's premise originated as a partnership between Black Canary and Barbara Gordon, who had adopted the codename Oracle at the time, but has expanded to include additional superheroines. The team name "Birds of Prey" was attributed to DC assistant editor Frank Pittarese in the text page of the first issue. The group is initially based in Gotham City and later operates in Metropolis and then relocates once more to "Platinum Flats", California, a new locale introduced in Birds of Prey in 2008.
Jurnee Diana Smollett is an American actress. She began her career as a child actress appearing on television sitcoms, including On Our Own (1994–1995) and Full House (1992–1994). She gained greater recognition with her role in Kasi Lemmons's independent film Eve's Bayou (1997), which earned her a Critics' Choice Movie Award.
David Ayer is an American filmmaker known for making crime films that are set in Los Angeles and deal with gangs and police corruption. His screenplays include Training Day (2001), The Fast and the Furious (2001), and S.W.A.T. (2003). He has also directed Harsh Times (2005), Street Kings (2008), End of Watch (2012), Sabotage (2014), and The Beekeeper (2024). In 2016, he directed the superhero movie Suicide Squad from the DC Extended Universe, and then the urban fantasy film Bright (2017) for Netflix. He has twice collaborated with actor Shia LaBeouf: first with the World War II drama Fury (2014), then the crime thriller The Tax Collector (2020). He has also collaborated with his friend Cle Shaheed Sloan who has appeared in four of his films.
François Chau is a Cambodian and American actor. He is known for his roles as Dr. Pierre Chang in ABC's Lost, Quick Kick on G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, Dr. Chang in the film 21 & Over, Shredder in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, and in 2015–2018, as industrialist Jules-Pierre Mao, a recurring character in Amazon's The Expanse.
Margot Elise Robbie is an Australian actress and producer. Her work includes both blockbuster and independent films, and her accolades include nominations for three Academy Awards, six BAFTA Awards and four Golden Globe Awards. Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2017, and Forbes named her the world's highest-paid actress in 2023.
Gotham City Sirens is an American comic book series that was written by Paul Dini with art by Guillem March and published by DC Comics. The term Gotham City Sirens refers to three of the most popular female villains inhabiting Gotham City: Catwoman, Harley Quinn, and Poison Ivy.
Suicide Squad is a 2016 American superhero film based on the DC Comics supervillain/anti-hero team of the same name. Produced by Warner Bros. Pictures, RatPac-Dune Entertainment, DC Films, and Atlas Entertainment, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, it is the third installment in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU). The film was written and directed by David Ayer and stars an ensemble cast led by Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Ike Barinholtz, Scott Eastwood, and Cara Delevingne. In the film, a secret government agency led by Amanda Waller recruits imprisoned supervillains to execute dangerous black ops missions and save the world from a powerful threat in exchange for reduced sentences.
The DC Extended Universe (DCEU) is an American media franchise and shared universe centered on a series of superhero films produced by DC Studios and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It is based on characters that appear in American comic books published by DC Comics. The DCEU also includes comic books, short films, novels, and video games. Like the original DC Universe in comic books, the DCEU is established by crossing over common plot elements, settings, cast, and characters.
Reed Morano is an American film director and cinematographer. Morano was the first woman in history to win both the Emmy and Directors Guild Award for directing a drama series in the same year for the pilot episode of The Handmaid's Tale. Morano is known for her cinematography work on feature films such as Frozen River (2008), Kill Your Darlings (2013) and The Skeleton Twins (2014).
Christina Hodson is an English screenwriter. She is best known for writing the films Bumblebee (2018), Birds of Prey (2020), and The Flash (2023). Her screenplay Shut In appeared on the 2012 edition of the Black List, an annual list of Hollywood's best unproduced screenplays, but the resulting film released in 2016 was critically panned. Another of her screenplays, The Eden Project, was picked up by Sony Pictures in 2014.
Christine Choy is a Chinese-American filmmaker. She is known for co-directing Who Killed Vincent Chin?, a 1988 film based on the murder of Vincent Jen Chin, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. She co-founded Third World Newsreel, a film company focusing on people of color and social justice issues. As a documentary filmmaker, she has produced and directed more than eighty films. She is a professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (also known as Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey or simply Birds of Prey) is a 2020 American superhero film directed by Cathy Yan and written by Christina Hodson, based on the DC Comics team the Birds of Prey. Produced by Warner Bros., DC Films, LuckyChap Entertainment, Clubhouse Pictures, and Kroll & Co. Entertainment, it is the eighth installment in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU), and serves as a spin-off and sequel to Suicide Squad (2016). It stars Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn alongside Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez, Chris Messina, Ella Jay Basco, Ali Wong, and Ewan McGregor. The film follows Harley Quinn, who, after breaking up with the Joker, is threatened by Gotham City crime lord Roman Sionis, and joins forces with Helena Bertinelli, Dinah Lance and Renee Montoya (who go on to form the Birds of Prey) to save Cassandra Cain.
Ella Jay Basco is an American actress best known for her work in Birds of Prey (2020). In 2020, she released an EP, Middle School. In February 2022, she released her single Eye to Eye for her upcoming album.
LuckyChap Entertainment Limited is a British-American production company based in Los Angeles and Bromsgrove, founded in 2014 by Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley, Josey McNamara and Sophia Kerr. The company describes their focal point as female-focused film and television productions.
Birds of Prey: The Album is the soundtrack album by various artists for the film Birds of Prey, released by Atlantic Records on February 7, 2020. Atlantic released five singles leading up to the album's release day. The album debuted at number 23 on the US Billboard 200, number nine in Australia, and within the top 40 in Canada, New Zealand, and Switzerland. It won the 2020 American Music Award for Top Soundtrack. A separate film score album, titled Birds of Prey – Original Motion Picture Score and composed by Daniel Pemberton, was released on February 14 by WaterTower Music.
Dead Pigs is a 2018 comedy drama film written and directed by Cathy Yan in her directorial feature film debut. It stars Vivian Wu, Haoyu Yang, Mason Lee, Meng Li, and David Rysdahl. The film had its world premiere in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition section at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2018. It was released worldwide on Mubi on February 12, 2021.
Dr. Harleen Frances Quinzel, later known as Harley Quinn, is a fictional character in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU), based on the character of the same name created by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm as a comic relief henchwoman for the supervillain Joker in the DC Animated Universe (DCAU) animated series Batman: The Animated Series (1992–1995) and later adapted to the DC Universe. Portrayed by actress Margot Robbie, she first appears in film in Suicide Squad (2016), playing a major role, and also stars in the spin-off solo film Birds of Prey (2020) and standalone sequel/soft reboot film The Suicide Squad (2021).
Margot Robbie is an Australian actress and producer. She made her film debut in the 2008 film Vigilante. Robbie then landed a role on the long-running Australian soap opera Neighbours. From 2011 until its cancellation in 2012, she portrayed a stewardess on the television series Pan Am. Her breakout role was in the Martin Scorsese-directed The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) opposite Leonardo DiCaprio. In 2015, she acted alongside Will Smith in the comedy-drama Focus. In the following year, Robbie played Harley Quinn in the DC Extended Universe film Suicide Squad, later reprising the role in Birds of Prey (2020) and The Suicide Squad (2021). Also in 2016, she played Jane Porter in The Legend of Tarzan. That year she also hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live.
Sara Colangelo is an American film director and screenwriter known for her films Little Accidents and Worth. Filmmaker Magazine named her one of its "25 New Faces of Independent Film" in 2010.
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