Uy Do

Uy Do was born 22 years ago in 1996, Vietnam. He moved to Southern California 3 years ago. Generally, he
is young, curious and thirsty to explore himself in the creative field. Since his interests in art, technology, music, and business have grown tremendously, he switched his major from computer science to film-making to continue pursuing his passion.

Jimmy Phan

A homo sapien individual whose goals still remains quite unclear. The individual has been grown and nurtured in Westminster, California for his entire life. This strange creature is almost nocturnal, preferring to spend a majority of his time at night awake, as opposed to the majority of his species. In his natural habitat, he enjoys consuming media and partaking in photography and videography. He does seem to have a fear of being in front of the camera/lens as well as fear of large crowds and public interaction. Experts still do not know how to rectify this fear, but we can only hope that it improves.

Alena Nguyen

Alena Nguyen is a 15 year old sophomore attending Orange County School of the Arts in Southern California, where she studies Creative Writing. Alena has published several featured articles on LA Times’ High School Insider. A tiny but mighty teen, she enjoys playing guitar, ukulele, and piano. She writes to inspire and entertain.

Brittany Nguyen

Brittany Nguyen (she/her/hers) is a recent first generation college graduate from Cal State Fullerton ’18. She currently works with the Undocumented Students Services at Cal Poly Pomona through a CSU STEM Initiative. She is a mental health advocate and believes in providing equitable access to health care resources and services to underserved communities. One day, she hopes to pursue a career in which she can promote a holistic and healthy lifestyle for communities of color. In her free time, she likes to host her InstaGram cooking shows, try out different ethnic food cuisines, travel, and drink boba. Brittany joined Youth in Motion because she realized there is a lack of Asian American representation in the entertainment and media industry and wants to be apart of diversifying the industry. In addition, she finds that telling your own story is very powerful and wants to provide a space for dialogue about certain issues that are relevant in the Vietnamese American community through different types of media.

Tina Tieu

Tina Tieu is a seventeen year old Santa Ana based multi-media artist who draws upon activism, spirituality, and her multicultural upbringing as sources of inspiration. She is a pre-frosh at the University of California, Berkeley, choosing to defer from the fall semester to focus on filmmaking. Her intended major is Interdisciplinary studies where she will be studying comparative diasporic issues such as immigration, agriculture, and education. She is currently an editor for Candidates & Coffee, a non-partisan political web series whose goal is to increase civic engagement among millennials. In the past, she has hosted mental health workshops for high school students at Santa Ana Unified School District’s Ethnic Studies Conference and the Orange County Walk In My Shoes Conference. She will be returning to this year’s Walk In My Shoes Conference: Telling Our Stories, Making Movement, as the keynote speaker.

James Vong

James Vong is a 16 year old who was born in Orange County. He is currently attending La Quinta High School and is hoping one day to be involved in major movies. He especially wants to be involved in the world of 3D animation, having grown up with Pixar movies, but is fine with exploring other fields of cinema, having interest in all types of art. In his free time, he usually spends time doodling and playing with his cat, Maru. with Besides art, he has a passion for volleyball, joining quite a few club volleyball seasons over the years. He lives in Fountain Valley with his grandmother, his 2 parents, sister and his cat.

Libbe Phan

Libbe Phan is a junior in high school from Irvine, CA. She began getting interested in making videos since elementary school after playing around with an editing software on her dad’s laptop and watching instructional videos on Youtube. Ever since then, Libbe has been learning more and experimenting with film by creating short videos in her spare time. Untold Secrets from Depression is the first short film she has ever worked on.

Nicole Nguyen

Nicole – 16, from Southern California. Does skate and fashion photography for a hobby/part time job. Also want to major in film production/screenwriting! Love fashion. Love indie and classic cinema. Favorite directors include Wes Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, and Akira Kurosawa.

Chau Hoang

My name is Chau Hoang, and I am 22 years old. I was born and raised in Hoian, a small ancient town in the central of Vietnam. I moved to the US at the age of 14 in hope of a better future.

I finished high school with an interest in photography. However, my first career choice in college was nursing, which is typical for an Asian family’s expectation.

I moved to Minnesota right after I graduated from high school. I stayed there for one year to pursue my nursing degree. I wasn’t happy, but I didn’t have the confident to make the decision to change my career. It was a fortunate opportunity that I got introduced into film production by working for my school theater.

I made the decision to move back to California in 2016, and I have been following my passion since.

I found out about Youth In Motion through friends. I see that this is the best opportunity for me to challenge myself in the industry. I hope to contribute as much as I can, and gain as much experience as I could through this program.

Vy Nguyen

Vy Nguyen is a Vietnamese filmmaker based in Orange County and Los Angeles. He is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Cinematic, Television, and Arts, concentrating in Screenwriting, at Cal State Northridge. He loves his family, and he is also a Criterion Collector.