Quyên Nguyen-Le (they/them) is a queer vietnamese filmmaker born to refugee parents in the place where Chumash and Tongva lands meet (San Fernando Valley, Los Ángeles). Quyên's film work focuses on the ways histories are deeply felt in the quotidian everyday.

Their short films Nước (Water/Homeland) (2016) and Hoài (Ongoing, Memory) (2018) have screened in film festivals, art galleries, libraries, and community spaces worldwide.

Their short documentary The Morning Passing on El Cajón Boulevard (2019) opened the 20th San Diego Asian Film Festival as a part of the omnibus film The Paradise We Are Looking For. In Living Memory (2022) is available to stream on PBS as a part of World Channel's Daytime-Emmy-nominated series "Asian American Stories of Resilience and Beyond."

Recently, Quyên was an Associate Producer for two Sundance premiering feature films - Julie Ha and Eugene Yi's Free Chol Soo Lee and Sing J. Lee's The Accidental Getaway Driver.

Along with Tad Nakamura, Quyên is currently directing a documentary about the artistic life of artist and activist Nobuko Miyamoto.

Quyên dropped out of film school to finish B.A. degrees in Comparative Literature and Philosophy, Politics & Law from the University of Southern California's program in Santiago, Chile and a M.A. in Visual Studies from the University of California, Irvine.

Quyên's work has been supported by the California Arts Council, the National Multicultural Alliance's Producer Lab, the Center for Asian American Media, Visual Communications, Kartemquin, and  Points North Institute.

You can reach them @smellydurianface on instagram.

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"DON’T UNDERESTIMATE DIRECTOR AND WRITER QUYÊN NGUYEN-LE’S ABILITY TO PACK AN EMOTIONAL PUNCH WITHIN SECONDS OF THE FILM’S START..." - THE LONG BEACH POST

ELSEWHERE

PRESS
Los Angeles Times
San Diego Union Tribune
Diacritics
Teen Vogue
​Buzzfeed
Sahtu Press
Long Beach Post
Visual Communications
The Advocate
Vietcetera
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​PODCASTS
Queering the Air, 3CR, Melbourne Australia
Asian Voices Podcast
LGBT & Viet Identities In Cinema, My Vietnam Podcast

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