Raina Liwen Yang is a Chinese writer and director based between New York and Guangzhou. She received her MFA in Film Directing from Columbia University in New York City and holds BAs in Cognitive Science and Film from the University of California, Berkeley. Her work centers on encounters between people whose beliefs and ways of life are in tension, often unfolding through nuanced relationships shaped by contradiction and unspoken desires. Drawing from her experience living between countries and communities, Raina is interested in how sociopolitical and environmental instability shapes the ways we imagine the future. Her short films have received support from organizations including the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Panavision, and the NYC Women’s Fund for Media, Music and Theatre, and have screened internationally at festivals including the Hamptons International Film Festival, FIRST International Film Festival, and the Asian American International Film Festival. Her first feature, Live Catch, has been developed through TorinoFilmLab Green Narratives and BendFilm Basecamp.

Live Catch — A Chinese immigrant vlogger volunteers at a drought-stricken Texas ranch, but as farm work and filming draw her into the rancher’s family, she must confront the cost of belonging to a world shaped by beliefs she cannot reconcile with her own.