In her talk, “Taking the South with Me,” filmmaker Jing Niu will discuss her artistic roots (and influences) in the American South and how her upbringing has influenced her career in the film arts through documentary work, journalism, and now fiction films. Niu is a first-generation Asian American who grew up working in take-out restaurants in the South and who would later, against the advice of her parents, become an artist and filmmaker. Prior to creating independent films in Los Angeles, she produced videos for Wired magazine, covering stories at the intersection of technology and lived experience. Nui is a member of AMWA (“Asian Mamas Working in the Arts”), an alliance of pan-Asians who mobilize through programming and political actions. Her latest short, Hornet’s Revenge, premiered at the 34th Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. Niu’s recently completed documentary The Traveler Takamure was awarded the Helen Hill Memorial Grant for best film by a female filmmaker at the 2018 Indie Grits Film Festival. Niu will spend this fall in Memphis as a Crosstown Artist in Residence writing a new webseries.