Leslie Tai (b.1983) is a Chinese-American filmmaker hailing from San Francisco, California. After graduating from UCLA with a B.A. in Design|Media Arts, Leslie moved to China on a U.S. Fulbright Scholarship in 2006. There, she earned her filmmaking chops in the underground Chinese documentary world as a student of Wu Wenguang, a founding figure of the New Chinese Documentary Movement.

From 2007-2011, she made and exhibited films as an artist of Wu's Beijing-based studio, Caochangdi Workstation. Tai is recipient of a 2019 Creative Capital Award and a graduate of the MFA Program in Documentary Film and Video at Stanford University. Her short films have premiered at Tribeca Film Festival, Visions du Réel (Nyon), International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and broadcast on The New York Times.

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ABOUT HOW TO HAVE AN AMERICAN BABY

How to Have an American Baby is a kaleidoscopic voyage into the shadow economy catering to Chinese tourists who travel to the US to give birth for citizenship. Told through a series of intimately observed vignettes, the story of a hidden global economy emerges – depicting the fortunes and tragedies that befall the ordinary people caught in its web.

Film

How to Have an American Baby

Program Affiliation

Documentary Lab

Cohort Year

2017-2019

Website

leslietai.com

Instagram

@lesliemftai