Born and raised in Beijing, China, Yan Cui started her career in the film industry as an actress and assistant director at the Beijing Film Studio. After moving to Canada, Yan earned her BFA in Film and Media Arts Studies from Ryerson Polytechnical University. Yan was a 1994 Director Resident of the prestigious Norman Jewison's Canadian Film Center.For her feature debut, Yan wrote, directed, and produced the award-winning film, Chinese Chocolate that garnered the International Confederation of Art Cinemas Award (C.I.C.A.E.Award) along with Todd Solondz's Welcome to the Dollhouse at the Berlin Film Festival, the Best Director at the Palm Springs Film Festival, and has been an official selection by more than 40 film festivals around the world. The film was distributed internationally (gained the top 10 box office in Brazil).Her follow-up second feature, which she also wrote, directed, and produced, was Tian Shang Ren Jian(Yellow Wedding), a co-production between Canada, China, and Singapore, where it premiered. It has been officially selected by World Film Festival of Montreal, Canada New Voice of IFFM New York, and Asian Pacific Film Festival, etc and was distributed in Asia.Yan has also made several short films and commercials, including the award winning shorts Late Afternoon, There Try Alive, Things In Between and Harm's Way that was officially selected in USA Film Festival, Atlantic Film Festival and showcased on "Shameless Short" and "CFC Retrospective".Yan's first Chinese language romantic comedy Love, Simply has been released in China nationwide on July 2015. And she's also executive-produced a romantic drama Love To Let Go the same year. She's working on her next couple of films, Honeymoon In Hell, a horror film set in China and Double Play, a mystery thriller, which will schedule to go into production in 2017. Show less «