Khai Thu Nguyen is an award-winning filmmaker whose works often seek to highlight the artistic practices of people whose stories are not usually told. Her films focus on exploring how the process of making art intersects with how we articulate ourselves. She is fascinated by the struggle in and out of artistic mediums as a vehicle in people’s efforts to write themselves and bring sense and agency to their experiences.
Khai’s short films have shown at festivals all over the U.S. Her debut feature documentary The Full Thao about identity-making and comedy performance is supported by the Center for Asian American Media and BAVC, and her short Memoirs of May is funded by Still I Rise Films Fellowship for US women artists. She is an SFFILM Rainin Grant finalist and a BAVC Mediamaker 2024 Fellow. Coming from a stage background, Khai previously directed and produced theater with multinational collaborators in Vietnam and the SF Bay Area. Other grants from Fulbright-Hays, UC Pacific Rim, and Royal Norwegian Embassy have supported her work. She received a B.A. in Humanities from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from UC Berkeley, where she had extensive experience in higher education administration, research, and teaching.
