12 Facts About Nanfu Wang

Nanfu Wang was born on 1985 and is a Chinese-born American film director, producer, and editor.

Nanfu Wang was born in a small, rural farming village in 1985 in Jiangxi Province, China.

Nanfu Wang's parents named her "Wang Nanfu", as Nan means man and Fu means pillar in Mandarin, hoping that the girl would grow up strong like a man.

Nanfu Wang has a younger brother who is several years younger; growing up, she felt ostracized by her classmates for having a sibling as most of her classmates were only children as a result of the One Child Policy in place at the time in China.

When Nanfu Wang was 12 years old, her father died from congenital heart disease which their family could not afford to get medical treatment for.

Nanfu Wang was forced to drop out of school to work so she could support her family.

When creating the film Nanfu Wang was not aware that this would make her a target for government surveillance, later stating that she "knew very little about the activist world".

Nanfu Wang has noted that her family and friends were followed and interrogated by officers who questioned whether or not they knew her, her whereabouts, and her current actions.

Nanfu Wang directed the documentary Night Is Not Eternal, which follows Rosa Maria Paya Acevedo over the course of several years, and was scheduled to premiere November 2024 on HBO.

Nanfu Wang was honored by the International Documentary Association with the 2016 Emerging Filmmaker Award.

Nanfu Wang was awarded a 2021 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Filmmaking by the Vilcek Foundation, "for the impact and courage of her riveting documentaries".

Nanfu Wang was one of 21 recipients of the MacArthur Fellowship in 2020.