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Miao Wang (director, producer, editor) is a Beijing-born New York-based filmmaker. Proudly bicultural and bilingual, she has a sensitive and fine-tuned appreciation of cultural nuances. Her focus is on creative and cinematic films that tell poignant human stories, inspire cultural understanding, build connections, and encourage a more humanistic perspective of the world. She holds a BA in economics from the University of Chicago, and an MFA in design and film from Parsons School of Design. She apprenticed with two mentors while completing her MFA: renowned graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister and the legendary documentarian Albert Maysles. Design sharpened her eyes to visual detail and how colors, textures, and patterns affect us. Maysles taught her how to be alert and perceptive to people’s gestures and emotions, however subtle. Both became models when she founded Three Waters Films in 2005. Since then she has produced two documentary features (Maineland and Beijing Taxi), part of a trilogy of films looking at China’s rise and its interaction with the U.S. Maineland (2017, New York Times Critic's Pick), Beijing Taxi (2010, New York Magazine Critic's Pick), and short film Yellow Ox Mountain (2007) have screened at over 200 international festivals and institutions such as SXSW and the Guggenheim Museum, with US theatrical releases, nationwide broadcasts, and digitally released globally on multiple platforms. Maineland world premiered in competition and received a Jury Award at the prestigious SXSW film festival, followed by a Jury Award at the Independent Film Festival of Boston and an Audience Choice Award at the New Hampshire Film Festival. It was nominated for the John Marshall Award at the Camden International Film Festival. Beijing Taxi world premiered in competition and was nominated for Best Feature Documentary at SXSW, and received a Best Feature Documentary award from the Sidewalk Film Festival and Best Director award from DukeCity Doc Fest. Miao’s films also have wide educational distribution - she tours across the U.S. to schools and conferences as a speaker and guest lecturer. While Maineland illuminates the experience of the Chinese students studying abroad in small town America for both the American and Chinese audiences, each audience takes away a different level of understanding. Maineland has been used by hundreds of schools, universities, and educational agencies in the U.S. not only for engendering greater understanding of the Chinese student experience, but also for teacher training.


In addition to producing critically acclaimed and award-winning non-fiction films, Miao also creates and produces commissioned work as well as branded programming for corporate and commercial clients that have garnered top advertising awards. The majority of these films require an acute awareness for working at the intersection of cultures. She directed and edited three episodes in the China Next series about innovative Chinese artists and tech entrepreneurs, produced by K11 Foundation and Docsville. She directed Made by China in America, a documentary short looking at the impact of Chinese investments in factories in South Carolina. The short is a part of the acclaimed and award-winning We the Economy series of 20 shorts by 20 directors. The series – produced by Vulcan Productions (Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen) and Cinelan – is a winner of the Telly, Shorty, and Webby Awards and nominee for the IDA Best Short Form Series. It is distributed on over 65 digital and broadcast platforms. Miao directed a series of three featurettes (Food, Energy, and Protection) and nine minidocs in collaboration with Ogilvy and Time Inc. for DuPont. Her team filmed in dozens of locations all across China, interviewing DuPont executives as well as local representatives and other documentary subjects for a global audience. The series launched at the Fortune Global Forum in Chengdu and subsequently released online in 2013. The series is a winner of the Telly, Stevie, Reggie, and Webby Awards. She also directed a series of videos filmed in China for executive level Philips global rebranding in conjunction with Ogilvy. She has an ongoing relationship with the Guggenheim Museum, directing, producing, and editing shorts profiling Chinese artists for their exhibitions.


Her clients include Ogilvy, DuPont, Philips, Microsoft Design, Time Inc., Guggenheim Museum, the Criterion Collection, and Vice Media. Miao is a recipient of grants and fellowship from the Sundance Institute, the Jerome Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, the Tribeca Film Institute, Tribeca All Access, IFP Filmmaker's Lab, Independent Film Week, Women Make Movies, and the Flaherty Film Seminar.