photo by Jake Price

Miao Wang is a filmmaker based in New York, currently splitting her time between New York and her hometown of Beijing. Born in Beijing just after the Cultural Revolution, She grew up with the last remnants of a pre-modernized Communist China. She immigrated to the US in 1990.

 BEIJING TAXI (2010), Miao’s first feature-length documentary, captures Beijing from the unique point of view of an emigrant Beijinger carrying the perspectives of both a native and an outsider. BEIJING TAXI world premiered and was nominated for Best Feature Documentary at SXSW 2010, took Best Feature Documentary at Sidewalk Film Festival 2010 and Best Director at Duke City Docfest 2010. It screened at over 30 international film festivals, had a theatrical release in 2010, and broadcast nation-wide on PBS in 2011.

 Her first half-hour film, YELLOW OX MOUNTAIN (2006), has screened at over 20 film festivals and venues worldwide; received a Best Short Film Award; and broadcast on Thirteen/WNET.

 She has worked as an assistant at Maysles Films, and has edited a feature-length PBS documentary and programs for National Geographic.

Miao has a B.A. in economics from the University of Chicago, and a M.F.A. in design and film from the Parsons School of Design. In documentary filmmaking Miao has found the outlet to not only fully engage every aspect of her multi-faceted interests and talents, but also a platform to observe and explore what truly touches her heart—the human condition. Her mission is to make poetic and cinematic documentaries that build human connections and reflect on the universalities of the human condition.

For BEIJING TAXI, Miao received a grant from the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund, the Jerome Foundation and New York State Council on the Arts, with additional support from IFP, Tribeca Film Institute, and Women Make Movies.

Miao is currently developing two new projects looking at education and youth in China.