RUIJIA WANG

Film

Hollywood Weekly Feature Story: PRODUCER/WRITER/DIRECTOR Ruijia Wang"A Truthful Filmmaker Committed To Showing Us Our Lives On Film"

BY ANTHONY EWART

Founder and Publisher of Hollywood Weekly Magazine, Prather Jackson, has brought 15-year-old singer/songwriter extraordinaire HITHA to the attention of our nation and the world. Hollywood Weekly Magazine is now formally introducing you to the next great filmmaker Ruijia Wang. A Producer/Writer/Director in her early twenties from China who has a firm grasp on the film images in her mind she wants the world to see. In fact, these are subjects she feels the world should see.

Ruijia, or RJ, as she is known to her friends, is truly what the filmmaking world needs. And that is Honesty. As a child Ruijia grew up on a filmset. Not as in "The Truman Show" (1998), bur parents worked in the industry. So many children growing in an environment Ruijia wanted to make it her profession as an adult. Except, unlike most children, Ruijia was more concerned in being behind the scenes. She began to view a filmset as a family. A second family. More importantly, a filmset became a safe place for her to be creative.

Ruijia graduated from New York Film Academy with a Bachelor of Fine Art in Filmmaking. For the last six years Ruijia has produced, written and directed scores of short films in both China and America. When I say scores of short films I mean close to twenty, and that's not counting the music videos Ruijia produced or the commercials she worked on as line producer. Which brings me to another point: Ruijia is exceptional in every aspect of getting a film made. People in the industry describe Ruijia as a person "who can bring projects to reality."

Bilingual in Mandarin and English, Ruijia personally handles casting, location scouting and acts as location manager. She's skilled at all manner of software needed in the completion of film editing. Many of Ruijia's films have been finalists in film festivals, such as "Teddy Bear," which was a finalist at the New York International Film Awards, along with her other short film "Piece of Cake." Ruijia won the Hollywood Gold Award" while still a student for the same film.

But what makes Ruijia Wang so important is that she cares about young people are feeling. She has sympathy for all and is able to empathize with some because of her own experiences. Ruijia draws on subjects like bullying, isolation, the inability to communicate with your parents. Ruijia had friends whose friends had divorced and the modus operandi

was always the same. Both parents give the child money and get on with their own private lives. It's almost as if the union of their marriage can't be returned and they have an obligation to keep their child alive and happy. Money solves both problems...

Ruijia was bullied early in school. It didn't last long but the feeling never left her. The idea of being afraid to go to school because someone might hurt you. Perhaps feeling it's a problem you have to solve all on your own. These are terrifying thoughts for an adult so a teenager battling these problems is heartbreaking.

These are the kind of subjects Ruijia Wang is interested in discussing through the medium of film. Ruijia has a production company behind her and she is now looking for dramatic scripts to produce. This is good news, writers! If you are serious about your craft and you want to make films that can actually help people then you'll soon be referring to Ruijia Wang as "RJ."

This is good news for the entire film community. It's about time we utilize the full power of films to heal.