Jess X. Snow is a non-binary filmmaker, multi-disciplinary artist, and poet of the JiangXi Chinese diaspora. Spanning murals, narrative films, children’s books and speculative fiction, their body of work reimagines queer Asian diaspora, kinship across cultures and species, mental health, and abolitionist futures. Jess recently received their M.F.A. in Writing/Directing from New York University. As writer/director, their short films center the desires, disobediences and dreams of flawed Chinese migrant queers and have screened at over 50 festivals around the world, including BFI Flare, Ann Arbor, Cinequest (Best Student Film) and Durban International Film Festival (Special Mention). Their work has been supported by grants from the Sloan Foundation for Science in Film, BAFTA, the Tribeca Film Institute, and the National Film Board of Canada. They have served as a cinematographer on award-winning narrative short films and documentary features about marginalized communities speaking truth to power. Jess is currently working on writing several feature films.

When the River Splits Open [co-written with Yumeng Han] — On a family visit to their industrializing homeland, Rain —a non-binary Chinese American— escapes their conservative family to search for their estranged father. Guided by a local with whom they have an uncanny connection, they journey from the metropolis to the mountains and rivers of the JiangXi countryside and confront the ghosts of their past and the land that made them.