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Portrait of Leslie Tai
Featured Alumni

"For me, documentary filmmaking is a collaborative process. We’re aiming to capture a fleeting, emotional truth in a poetic way — while it’s happening, but also while a million other things are happening."

Leslie Tai

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Two hands holding a mobile phone, taking a photo of a family
Still from My American Surrogate (2019) by Leslie Tai

Leslie Tai (‘11) is a Chinese-American filmmaker hailing from San Francisco, California. Tai is recipient of a 2019 Creative Capital Award. Her short films have premiered at Tribeca Film Festival, Visions du Réel (Nyon), International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and broadcast on The New York Times. Tai's work chronicles the dreams, anxieties, and consumer desire of China’s rising middle class and the Chinese diaspora from a distinctly female perspective.

Her recent short film My American Surrogate premiered as part of NY Times Op-Docs Series and was supported by the Tribeca Film Institute and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

She is currently in post-production on her feature debut How to Have an American Baby.

Website: www.leslietai.com