Yang was born in
Hong Kong. She moved to the United States in 1977 to study filmmaking at the
San Francisco Art Institute. In 2003, Yang co-founded the
Chang Ai Media Project with filmmaker
Thomas F. Lennon to raise awareness of
HIV/AIDS in
China. The project's documentaries and public service announcements have reached over 900 millions viewers. As part of this effort, Lennon and Yang made a trilogy of short documentary films about modern China, including
The Blood of Yingzhou District (2006), which won
Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film in 2007,
Tongzhi in Love (2008), which was shortlisted in the same category, and
The Warriors of Qiugang (2011), which was nominated for Academy. Her feature documentary
My Voice, My Life (2014) won the 2015 NPT Human Spirit Award at the
Nashville Film Festival. In 2015, Yang established
Hong Kong Documentary Initiative (HKDI), aiming at fostering Hong Kong documentary filmmakers. It provided grants for 18 local projects, including
Chan Tze-woon's
Blue Island (2022). HKDI regularly hosts live interviews and dialogues with prominent filmmakers, until 2020.
The Last Stitch (2019) is another documentary project, that Yang worked as a producer, explores generations of a family of tailors emigrated from Hong Kong to Canada. It captures the disappearing art of handmade
Chinese Cheongsam. In 2024, three of Yang's films are shown in
Asian Avant-Garde Film Festival at
M+ Museum. As of June 2024, Yang is the director of
Journalism and Media Studies Centre (JMSC) at the
University of Hong Kong. ==Filmography ==