Cathy Yan

Cathy Yan, filmmaker, used to once be an 8-year-old walking around with a video camera. She started out as a dancer while in college. However, the career wasn't for her and she soon moved over to journalism, through which she bagged a job at the Wall Street Journal. While working on an article about rookie filmmakers, the Chinese-American director realised that she could foray into this line of work as well.

So she enrolled for a graduate film and business program in New York which kickstarted her film career. After several short films, Yan directed Dead Pigs in 2018, her first feature film which was shot in Mandarin and English. A year later, after the film had won a Special Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival, Yan was attracted to the script of Birds of Prey. She pitched forward her eccentric vision for the movie and was surprised when it was accepted. The movie is a 2020 release, making Yan the first Asian-American woman and the second woman overall to direct a DC comic book movie.