Shuang Yu (b. 1997) is a documentary filmmaker from China. She enjoys long-term collaboration with communities and creates materials from everyday encounters and intimate conversations with local residents. Through filmmaking, Shuang practices being with others, and understanding life together with others. 

 

Her recent works are based in her grandfather’s village in eastern China and include two feature-length documentaries — Old Mei in Huangpotan Village (2021) and Mao in Huangpotan Village (2022). Together, they form an ongoing experiment in retelling history through affective experiences of shame, passion, and disorientation. What drives these films is a desire to understand how historical and ideological transformations leave traces within the sense of self. 

 

Shuang is a participant of the Folk Memory Project, a decade-long collective documentary initiative to record oral histories with Chinese farmers. She co-founded the online festival Film for Mother, which supports amateur and personal filmmaking as a means of understanding and reimagining one’s immediate society. 

 

Shuang holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Duke University and is currently developing new work at the Netherlands Film Academy.