Bryan Sih is a filmmaker based in LA combining his love of Buddhism, acting, and painting to make contemplative, uncanny moving images.
He seeks modes of collaboration that are non-hierarchical, immersive, and improvisational.
In 2022, he received a Hemera Contemplative Fellowship offered to those who make a professional commitment to service through their work, allowing them to attend a sitting retreat— in this case, Sih practiced at Thích Nhất Hạnh’s Deer Park monastery.
He is a 2021 Sundance Uprise Grant recipient and an Emerging Artist Fellow for the California Arts Council Artist Fellowship for 2021. With this funding he shot his second feature, The Words Escaping Us, currently in post-production.
He was a 2020 Armed With a Camera Fellow, where his award-winning film After|mages played at the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival, Seattle Asian American Film Festival, and CAAMFEST, winning Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography and nominated for Best Drama & Best Short Film at the Lonely Wolf: London Int’l Film Festival.
He was also was an artist-in-residence at the Teton Art Lab in 2020 where he developed his upcoming feature and made an experimental short doc.
Sih started his career as a youth media educator, working alongside middle and high schoolers to make personal films and music videos using art therapy and community artmaking models. During this time, his team won a prestigious Adobe Creative Catalyst Grant for “working to ensure equitable access to creative careers and to build more diverse and inclusive creative industries.”
In 2014, his film Winter/Spring won Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Editing and Sound Design at the Redstone Film Festival and also screened at the Boston Cinema Census. He then traveled to Beijing to film a documentary about dance and modernization and made a short film A Prince is Not Respected in His Hometown, which played at festivals around the U.S.
After working as a director at Youtube Ads Creation, he transitioned to directing music videos, branded content, documentaries, and narratives.
