Yan Chun Su of Waterdrop Films is a self-taught documentary filmmaker. She was born in China and received her education in both China and the US. After working as a computer software engineer for a number of companies in Boston, Yan took to the road and traveled to many far and distance places including Patagonia, the Amazon, the Arctic, Mongolia, and many remote communities in China and southeast Asia, etc. Her first film, Sega, African School Dream, which aired on Current TV, was a product from teaching in a small village in Ghana in 2006.
Since then, documentaries she produced and directed have been shown on cable TVs and international film festivals. Yan also works as a cinematographer, editor, and has created documentary style promotional videos for non-profit organizations.
From 2005, Yan began to travel to the Nu(Salween) River Canyon in southwest China near the Burmese and Tibetan border and documented some of the uniquely diverse indigenous cultures of that area. Spending an extensive period of time with one family of Lisu people, one of the thirteen ethnic minorities in the region, she worked as an one-woman crew and made Treasure of the Lisu, a 30-minute observational style documentary. The film presents an intimiate portrait of one of the last remaining tradition bearers of an ethnic minority living in modern day China.
Yan continues to explore the endless possibilities of using documentary films to tell stories about her native China and other parts of the world she encountered. Several projects are under development.