Chi-hui Yang
Director, Creativity and Free Expression
Chi-hui Yang is the director of the Creativity and Free Expression team, and leads the team in supporting grantmaking in the fields of arts and other forms of cultural expression, documentary film, and journalism.
Previously, he was a Senior Program Officer managing the grants globally in documentary film, new media, and visual storytelling for the foundation’s JustFilms program. He managed a portfolio of grants that supported artist-led, socially engaged filmmaking, advanced a more equitable and inclusive documentary sector, and built the power of organizations and individuals grounded in communities of color and the Global South.
Before joining the foundation in 2015, Chi-hui worked extensively as a film curator, including as a selection committee member for MoMA’s Doc Fortnight and consulting series producer for PBS’s POV. Among his independently curated programs are the 2008 Flaherty Film Seminar “The Age of Migration” and the film series and symposium “Lines and Modes: Media, Infrastructure, and Aesthetics.” From 2000 to 2010, he was director of the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, the largest event of its kind in the nation.
Chi-hui has served as a professor at a number of storied institutions such as an adjunct professor in Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and Hunter College’s Asian American Studies Program, and as an instructor at the UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art.
Chi-hui earned a master’s degree in film studies from San Francisco State University and a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Stanford University. . He is currently on the Impact Advisory Council for Participant Media, and is also a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
