Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Winona Lu. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Winona, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

The most meaningful project I ever worked on came after one of the most humbling.

The first film I was ever asked to shoot fell apart during production. We completed shooting but the film will never see the light of day. It is the second film I ever shot that has impacted me the most.

After the failure of the first, I was plagued with doubt, particularly around my desire to pursue cinematography. But then, a director asked me to shoot their short film, saying that she thought my work was brilliant and that she’d love to work with me. Their name was Alicia Qian and we would go on to make a very close-to-home film called ‘Did You Eat Yet?’ The film follows a Chinese-American woman who is throwing everything away to start her own restaurant but is now faced with something even harder – telling her mother about the decision. Short and sweet to film and as a final product. Good food, good people, and good lessons learned. ‘Did You Eat Yet?’ has screened in front of many crowds on both coasts, and more importantly, has received the approval of numerous Asian mothers.

Aside from my personal connection to the story and forged friendships with the team, this film is the most meaningful to me as a cinematographer because it returned me to my confidence. I know that I am well-equipped to handle myself and any challenges placed before me, I know that my chosen teams have my back and are themselves ready to handle anything, and I know now (and with every project since then) that I love cinematography.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Winona Lu and I’m a filmmaker living and working in New York.

I grew up much the same way as many people do, which is searching for a sense of belonging. And so I fell in love with cinema the same way so many of us do – because it gave me that feeling I had been searching for.

My conscious memories begin in small towns of Australia. The images of that time are mostly of my family. Then there is school, and then there was swimming, both of which brought shaped me as a person. In my younger schooling, I was always one of very few Asian children. This was something that was felt, but never articulated. The school diversified in my older years but there was perhaps even more self-hating rhetoric spoken by my fellow Asian peers. It was hard to escape and hard to resist for all of us, I think.

I swam competitively from the ages 8-15 and, though it won me some small renown, it was nothing tangible or long lasting. The environment was such that, though you trained in teams, you were still competing against each other. An injury forced me to leave my swimming career behind and I am deeply grateful for it. To find my way into the film world after that was a relief. Here was a place where there were like-minded and kind-hearted people, and where everyone worked as a team to create something together, belonging to everyone.

As a filmmaker and artist, that sense of belonging is something I am constantly striving to create – in the work I produce and also in the making of that work. Film is so unique because it is so collective. The work is the people; the people are the work. We give each other belonging so that we may give it to our audiences. Call it by any other name – recognition, honouring, truth – that is what I am still searching for, in my own work now.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Art and creation are practices grounded in understanding our human experiences. It is how we may understand others and how we may be understood. There are few things more valuable and affecting to me than connecting with other people beyond the surface level. As a cinematographer informed by my love for photography, I’ve come to think of creating images as more of a capturing of moments and presenting memories. Nothing is ever shown in its entirety, everything is orchestrated to some degree. Even non-fiction is fiction. Our memories remember but don’t replicate exacts. What sticks with us are images and feelings, so my job becomes bringing you the feeling of the moment as potently as possible. The work is rewarding not only if it is beautiful, but if audiences are conveyed an emotional memory and feeling in the images.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

People are always my motivation, images and connections are my reward. I love to work with people who understand me and push me to find new ways of viewing and capturing something because this is how we grow as technical workers (because a lot of filmmaking is technical and formal) and as artists.

To speak more plainly, I want to learn about the world through as many different eyes as I can. I wish to talk to people, feel their histories, hear their wisdom, and bring those to the rest of the world. Most pressing to me are, of course, those closest to me. The stories of Asian diaspora and the experience of growing up in a place where your identity is not accepted. Queerness and gender exploration; love and friendship and things that try to break us. What it looks like and what it feels like to find our way through it all.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.winonalu.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/winona.lu/
• Other: Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/user69238941