Renzi Li & Tianxing Yan

Renzi Li

Renzi Li is a filmmaker, sound designer, and educator from China, currently based in Seattle. Her work spans film, theatre, and games, exploring migration, memory, and identity through sound and image. She holds dual MFAs in Film and Sound Design from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Renzi currently teaches film and sound design at Seattle Film Institute.

Renzi first became interested in film during high school and later interned at the China Science and Education Film Studio, where she contributed to documentary projects. Since moving to Seattle at the age of 26, she has continued to work across multiple mediums and platforms. Her short film George’s Chick received wide recognition, screening at several international festivals. It was a semifinalist at the Academy Award–qualifying Rhode Island International Film Festival, won an award at WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival, and was nominated at other festivals worldwide.

In addition to her film work, Renzi is active in theatre and sound art. She became a company artist with Yun Theatre in 2022. Her short play The Buddha Hall premiered in 2023, and her collaborative sound installation Origin Hertz was exhibited at the Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art in 2024.

In 2025, she began co-directing the feature documentary Off Script with artist Tianxing Yan, a project that continues her interest in stories of uncertainty, resilience, and creative resistance. With experience in both narrative and experimental forms, Renzi is dedicated to crafting meaningful personal stories that capture human emotions within shifting social landscapes.

Tianxing Yan

Tianxing Yan is a costume designer from Hohhot, working across theater and film. She holds an MFA in Dramatic Arts with a specialization in Costume Design from the University of California, Davis, where she refined her approach to storytelling through design. 
 
Her practice is rooted in an exploration of the intersection between fashion and history. She is deeply interested in how clothing reveals cultural shifts, reflects identity, and carries collective memory. Drawing inspiration from social history, textile studies, and visual art, Yan approaches each project as an opportunity to create an immersive visual narrative. She seeks to design costumes that do more than adorn a character—they become vessels for meaning, transporting audiences into new imaginative realms and sparking reflection on the societies that shape us. 
 
Her recent projects span theater, film, and playwriting. Yan’s theatrical work includes Almond Blossom in Deir Yassin (Dunya Productions), Hells Canyon (Washington Ensemble Theatre), Cornelia’s Visitors (eSe Teatro), Eurydice (Bainbridge Performing Arts), Passage (Yun Theatre) Vietgone (Porkfilled Productions) June is the First Fall(Yun), 年轻人社死档案室 (Yun).Beyond design, she is also developing Sawmill, a play adaptation of the book From Forest Farm to Sawmill, which traces the lives of women workers across decades of social transformation; and Off Script, a documentary-in-progress exploring immigrant identity, creative survival, and nonlinear definitions of success.