Nanfu Wang

Nanfu Wang (born 1985) is a Chinese-born American film director, producer, and editor. Her debut film Hooligan Sparrow premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2017. Her second film, I Am Another You, premiered at SXSW Film Festival in 2017 and won two special jury awards, and her third film, One Child Nation, won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary Feature at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Wang is the recipient of a 2021 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Filmmaking, from the Vilcek Foundation. Her 2024 documentary feature, titled Night Is Not Eternal, won a Peabody Award at the 85th Annual Ceremony.

Early life Wang was born in a small, rural farming village in 1985 in Jiangxi Province, China. Her parents named her "Wang Nanfu" , as Nan (男) means man and Fu (栿) means pillar in Mandarin, hoping that the girl would grow up strong like a man. She 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 Wang was 12 years old,notetag|name=fn1|One source reports her age as 11 at the time

When creating the film 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".

Night Is Not Eternal

Wang directed the documentary Night Is Not Eternal, which follows Rosa María Payá Acevedo over the course of several years, and premiered November 2024 on HBO.

Major contributions and awards Wang's film Hooligan Sparrow screened at festivals in over 25 countries including Sundance, Hot Docs, Sheffield DocFest, Full Frame, and Human Rights Watch Film Festival. Her film I Am Another You premiered at SXSW in 2017 and won the LUNA / Chicken & Egg Award for Best Documentary Feature directed by a woman and the SXSW Special Jury Award for Excellence in Documentary Storytelling. Wang was honored by the International Documentary Association with the 2016 Emerging Filmmaker Award. Her third feature, One Child Nation, won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary Feature at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. 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".

In 2021 she was selected as a Jury member for the BIFF Mecenat Award at the 26th Busan International Film Festival to be held in October.

In December 2021, she was included in the list of BBC's 100 Women of 2021.

Personal life Wang is married and mother of two boys (born c. 2017 and 2022). She resides in New Jersey.