Private Project

No Land Beneath Our Wings

When Asian immigrant and working-visa holder Iris discovers that her work has been erased once again during a key presentation, she decides to fight back. Trapped by her visa status yet desperate for justice, she hunts for lost footage that could expose her manager’s racism — only to confront what resistance might cost her. As colleagues stay silent and the system tightens around her, Iris must choose between survival and defiance — in a world that never promised her land beneath her wings.

  • Vimel Meng
    Director
  • Vimel Meng
    Writer
  • Vimel Meng
    Producer
  • Xiaoqian Xing
    Producer
  • Rita He
    Art Director
  • Stacy Pan Chu
    Key Cast
    "Iris"
  • Deepika Jariyal
    Key Cast
  • Yuqi Sun
    Editor
  • Lava Hong
    Music Supervisor, Composer
  • Yiming Si
    Director of Photography
  • Stella Zhou
    Story Editor
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Runtime:
    14 minutes 22 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    November 1, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    15,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Vimel Meng

Vimel Meng is a U.S. and Hong Kong–educated filmmaker with a background in sociology, filmmaking and data engineering. Having spent years in the modern tech industry, she examines the human cost concealed within systems of power and efficiency. Through cinema, Meng explores the intersections of immigration and identity, gender tension, trauma and mental health, using poetic realism to question belonging and the meaning of life in an era defined by displacement.

Approaching the world through a distinctly female perspective, her films reclaim representation—revealing resilience within silence and defiance within vulnerability.

No Land Beneath Our Wings continues this exploration, portraying an immigrant woman’s struggle to reclaim her voice and agency within a world that measures worth through productivity.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

As a first-generation immigrant in the United States, I am part of a large yet underrepresented community whose stories are often unheard. Many of us cross continents seeking independence or stability, only to find ourselves bound by a fragile system that measures worth through productivity and compliance. The H-1B visa program, with its shifting policies and arbitrary lottery, turns human lives into statistics—reducing identity to chance. We adapt, excel, and survive, yet often at the cost of our voices, dreams, and sense of belonging.

No Land Beneath Our Wings was born from that silence. The film follows Iris, an immigrant woman whose erased contributions at work compel her to confront the structures that confine her. Her lost camera becomes a metaphor for the creative and personal identities many immigrants abandon in pursuit of survival. In this landscape of uncertainty, where resistance can mean risk, empathy becomes a form of strength. By understanding one another’s quiet endurance, we reclaim a shared sense of dignity and presence.

Even when systems cannot be immediately changed, stories can shift understanding. I hope this film is one step toward that shift.