My guest on this week’s episode is Xinyi Zhu who directed her latest short film Kindling (2020) starring Jill Renner and Nicole Falk. The film tells the story of childhood best friends Piper and Celeste, who are forced to reassess their relationship as they drive across America to a small-town abortion clinic.

We jumped into Xinyi’s experience growing up in China and falling in love with filmmaking by secretly watching films on her iPod Nono, how studying psychology at UCLA influenced her approach to storytelling and what’s it like writing a new feature film screenplay in the era of Covid-19.

▶️ FILM LINK

You can check out Kindling and Xinyi’s other short film projects on Vimeo right now at https://vimeo.com/xinyizoo

🌐 SHOW LINKS

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE9EhXyAp_TwfKKi-pOr8oQ

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iwjwwts_show/