“I tell stories the way I dream—vivid, boundless, and full of cross-border transformations.”

Hailed from Shanghai, Merry May Ma is a writer/director/producer based in Los Angeles. As a mushroom-lover dedicated to telling tactile and uplifting stories, she discovered her passion for filmmaking while studying psychology and film studies at Washington University in St. Louis. During the pandemic, she directed a documentary about international students navigating the “Zoom University Era,” which inspired her journey to UCLA.

Her work explores the resilience of the human soul, aiming to inspire audiences to “see more, hear more, and feel more” (Sontag, 1964). Her UCLA MFA thesis film, GARDENERS, won the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant and Panavision New Filmmaker Grant. GARDENERS explores how seemingly unrelated things, like nano-science and mushrooms, are deeply connected.

Beyond filmmaking, she co-founded API Film Night, the only film festival at UCLA showcasing AAPI filmmakers’ best works. You can learn more about her at https://merrymayma.com.