In the Making

The Future of Hmong Storytelling & Innovation in filmmaking

Saturday, December 6, 2025
In Progress, 213 Front Ave, St. Paul, MN 55117

This gathering was all about reflecting and honoring our pioneering moments and experiences — as well as, lifting up the next generation of creators — and talking honestly about what it takes to build, imagine, and sustain a creative life. The screening explored how early career Hmong artists are redefining storytelling through film, music, design, and digital media and what the journey of innovation looks like in real time: the risks, the breakthroughs, the questions and the possibilities ahead.

indigo / lucy vang / circa 2017

Indigo is a short film highlighting the music, dance, and creative vision of the Hmong girl group Indigo, founded by Lucy Vang, Nancy Thor, and Alexis Vang. Captured by Lucy, the project celebrates the group’s musical talents while reflecting their larger goal of increasing the visibility of Hmong women in entertainment and encouraging young Hmong women to see themselves as artists, performers, and creative leaders.

The film was created in partnership with the Funny Asian Women Kollective (FAWK), founded in 2014 by Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay, May Lee-Yang, and Naomi Ko to challenge the invisibility and dehumanization of Asian Pacific Islander Desi American women through humor, performance, and comedy. Together, the project offers a joyful expression of Hmong female creativity, representation, and possibility.

Tsug 13 Hnub / chou Xiong (Tshaj Lis Productions) / circa 2020

Tsug 13 Hnub is a Hmong horror-comedy anthology built around the belief that someone who dies may return within 13 days. This three-minute excerpt offers a lively introduction to the feature film’s three interconnected stories, blending supernatural encounters and suspense with unexpected humor and moments of genuine emotion. Moving between fear, grief, and laughter, Tsug 13 Hnub demonstrates how Hmong filmmakers draw upon cultural beliefs and storytelling traditions while playfully reinventing the conventions of contemporary horror and comedy.

hmong organization - episode 5 / May Lee yang & peter yang / circa 2024

Hmong Organization is a limited mockumentary web series following the everyday shenanigans of a Hmong nonprofit and the people who work there. The project debuted with a pilot in 2018 and was reintroduced in 2024 as a nine-episode mini-series, which began its YouTube release on November 29, 2024.

In this episode of Hmong Organization, Mairy hosts an event designed to empower the women and girls at HO—but her colleagues become a little more inspired than anyone anticipated. The episode brings the series’ playful humor to questions of empowerment, workplace dynamics, and the sometimes unpredictable realities of community-based nonprofit work.

hmong organization - episode 6 / May Lee yang & peter yang / circa 2024

In this episode of Hmong Organization, the women and girls of HO give men a taste of their own medicine. The episode brings the series’ playful humor to the realities of community-based work in a Hmong-run nonprofit.

the wind always strikes the highest mountain / Yeej Moua / circa 2021

The Highest Mountain is an independent short film written and directed by Minnesota-based Hmong American artist and filmmaker Yeej Moua. Premiering at the Northern Spark Festival in Saint Paul in June 2021, the film explores grief, healing, and emotional resilience through a distinctly Hmong American cultural lens. Drawing upon Moua’s practice of using cinema to examine personal experience and cultural identity, the work considers the complex ways individuals and communities carry loss while finding pathways toward healing. Original music and soundscapes, including work by local independent artist Alicia Thao, add another layer to the film’s intimate exploration of memory, emotion, and perseverance.

history of hmong coins / dan yang / circa 2025

This excerpt from Dan Yang’s work-in-progress documentary The History of Hmong Coins explores the complex history of French colonial silver currency in Indochina and its eventual incorporation into traditional Hmong garments and adornment. Once connected to systems of commerce and colonial taxation, these coins were transformed within Hmong communities into portable wealth and objects carrying cultural and familial significance. The film considers how this transformation reflects a larger history of adaptation and resilience, as objects associated with colonial power took on new meaning within Hmong cultural traditions.

wb lub tsev / Chue Xiong (tshaj Lis Productions) / circa 2022

Wb Lub Tsev is a Hmong short film released by Tshajlij Productions and the final installment in the Thaub Dabsss series. Blending tragic romance with horror, the film draws upon Hmong ghost stories, spiritual beliefs, and supernatural traditions to explore love, loss, memory, and the bonds that can remain after death.

Through its use of spirits and otherworldly encounters, Wb Lub Tsev places a contemporary cinematic love story within a distinctly Hmong cultural framework. The film demonstrates how a new generation of Hmong filmmakers is adapting elements of oral storytelling, folklore, and spiritual tradition for the screen, using familiar cultural narratives to create work that is at once dramatic, unsettling, and deeply rooted in Hmong ways of understanding the relationship between the living and the spirit world.

bored / dhoua hli vue / circa 2021

Bored is a deeply personal short film by Dhoua Hli Vue that reflects on isolation, family, and grief during the COVID-19 pandemic. Created during lockdown with her two autistic brothers, the film captures the emotional pressures of confinement and disrupted daily life while also exploring Vue’s ongoing grief following the 2017 drowning death of her older sister, Ghia Nah. Through an intimate lens, Bored considers how isolation can bring unresolved emotions to the surface, while revealing the complicated ways family, memory, loss, and love intersect during periods of profound uncertainty.

hmong girl magic / Lucy vang / circa 2025

Hmong Girl Magic is a celebration of Hmong identity, womanhood, and the strength found in embracing one’s full self. Created as a message to Hmong girls and women who have felt pressure to diminish or hide parts of themselves, the music video affirms that strength, softness, personal experience, and cultural identity are all sources of power. Featuring Meso Nina, with music produced by JAMES97 and video production by Gryphonveil Productions, the piece brings artists together around a joyful message of visibility, self-acceptance, and pride in being Hmong.

birds nest / Dan Yang / circa 2023

Birds Nest is an independent film project directed and created by filmmaker Dan Yang, first announced around 2023. Described by the filmmaker as a deeply personal and impactful story, the project draws inspiration and thematic direction from the 2006 killing of Fong Lee in Minneapolis and the subsequent efforts by his family and community to seek justice. Through a fictionalized cinematic lens, Birds Nest engages broader questions of family, community, racial injustice, accountability, and the lasting impact that violence can have across generations. The project reflects the growing role of Hmong filmmakers in using narrative cinema to examine difficult histories and experiences affecting Hmong American communities.

Sun & Moon / Ger Moua / circa 2024

Sun & Moon is a Hmong short film inspired by the traditional story of Nkauj Hnub Nraug Hli, an origin tale of the sun and moon. Set at the dawn of creation, before light and darkness have taken their familiar forms, the film reimagines the folklore as a timeless story of two lovers whose relationship is challenged by forces beyond their control. Through romance, fantasy, and richly constructed visual environments, the film brings a traditional Hmong story into contemporary cinematic form.

Written and directed by (Ntxawg) Ger Moua, with cinematography by Sian of CN Pictures, Sun & Moon was created through an ambitious independent production incorporating 3D environments, visual effects, compositing, and matte painting. The film reflects a commitment to preserving and reinterpreting Hmong folklore through filmmaking, contributing a new visual expression of stories that have been carried across generations. The cast features Kabao Xiong as Sun (Nou) and Sia Thao as Moon (Lee).