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Logline

One night in an unnamed Asian metropolis, an eighteen-year-old girl steals her politician father’s car to take her young sister across the city, only to discover that running away is not true rebellion.

Synopsis

Set in an Asian metropolis, Constance (18) steals her politician father’s government car, taking her sister Mia (12) on an escape to meet a famous cosplayer. The daughters traverse the cityscape as they meet a cosplayer named Coco at an arcade, but when they are invited to a party, Constance’s act of rebellion inadvertently leads them into danger. The siblings find themselves drugged and trapped in a love hotel, but in making their escape, they arrive at a billboard advertisement for their father. In a final act of defiance, they deface it to dismantle the fabricated persona he’s using for re-election.
 

Meet the Filmmakers

Valen Zeng — Writer/Director
Valen Zeng is a writer/director from southern China currently pursuing her MFA in Film at Columbia University. With a background in editing (AFI) and fine arts (RISD), her work explores girlhood, desire, and bodily resistance through a visceral, image-driven language. She is a recipient of the 2025 Alex Sichel Fellowship for a Promising Female Filmmaker and the 2026 Wayfarer Studios Production Fund.

Valen’s films often center on East Asian female protagonists navigating the queer intersections of shame, intimacy, and liberation. In Prayer Beads (Nian Zhu) (2024), an official selection at the Yellowstone International Film Festival, she crafts a surreal allegory about yeast infections spreading among girls, pushing the audience into an uncomfortable emotional proximity in search of an honest, embodied cinematic language. She is deeply interested in how female rage, silence, and liberation manifest not just through narrative, but through precise spatial dynamics, evocative color palettes, and rich sonic textures — the same sensibility she now brings to Girls in Transit.

Alongside directing, Valen is an accomplished editor whose festival-recognized credits include the Biennale College Cinema feature Gu Shi (dir. Amie Song), set to premiere at the 2026 Venice Film Festival, and the Palm Springs International Film Festival –recognized short The Story of This Life.

Yuxi Zhu — Producer
Yuxi Zhu is a New York-based short film producer currently pursuing her M.F.A. in Creative Producing at Columbia University. Her work is deeply rooted in feminist issues, focusing on subcultures, social phenomena, and marginalized figures often overlooked by mainstream media. As a producer, she is dedicated to using cinema as a medium to amplify the voices of vulnerable communities and unseen women. Her projects have garnered significant industry recognition, receiving support from the Columbia University Film Production Grants, The Michael Hausman/Buffalo Mike Filmhaus Foundation Award, the Wayfarer Studios Production Fund, and the Shore Scripts Short Film Finishing Fund.

Austin chen — Producer
Austin Chen is an award-winning producer from Fort Lee, New Jersey who graduated from AFI’s MFA in Producing Program and NYU Tisch School of the Arts. He is a Deutsche Bank Frieze Filmmaking Fellow, Gold House Futures Member, and Panavision New Filmmakers Grant Awardee. Throughout his career, Austin’s productions have led to screenings at esteemed Oscar-qualifying festivals and garnered prestigious awards and distribution: BEHOLD A LADY won the DGA Student Film Award – Grand Prize for best African American student filmmaker and was distributed by American Airlines, APTITUDE won best writing at SeriesFest, MORT was an Honorable Mention for Shot on Film at Hollyshorts.

With a strong background in development and talent management, Austin has experience at Media Res Studio, Square Peg Productions, Proximity Media, Untitled Entertainment, and MANAGE-MENT.

Yasuko Yui — Producer
Yasuko Yui is a Los Angeles based Japanese-Chinese producer and a 2024 graduate of the American Film Institute Conservatory’s Producing program. Her AFI thesis film, F.C.B.K., was supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Visionary Justice Story Lab, and premiered at the Hawai’i International Film Festival.

Prior to AFI, she was part of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, where she researched on-screen and behind-the-camera representation, contributing to published DEI reports that helped drive meaningful change across the entertainment industry. In recent years, she has independently produced a diverse slate of narrative and music video projects that spotlight API voices and stories. Since 2024, she has worked as Assistant to director HIKARI, and assisted her recent feature Rental Family (2025), starring Brendan Fraser.

Wuren — Producer
Wuren is a trilingual producer based in New York and Tokyo. She holds an MFA in Film from the School of Visual Arts in New York and has produced commercial and narrative work across the globe, with credits including miHoYo and Hennessy. Her films have screened at festivals including Slamdance, Tokyo Film Awards, First International Film Festival, and the Shanghai International Film Festival.

As a producer, Wuren oversees every stage of the filmmaking process — from budgeting and scheduling to casting and distribution — with a meticulous eye for detail and a talent for translating a script’s vision into the final cut. Known for her precision, adaptability, and cross-cultural fluency, she brings both craft and calm under pressure to every production she joins.

Tu Do — Cinematographer
Tu Do is a Vietnamese-American Cinematographer with a focus on narrative filmmaking. His films THE MUSICAL, IMAGO, MORT, and FLICK have played at notable film festivals such as Sundance, TIFF, SXSW, and Palm Springs International SHORTFEST. He is currently splitting time between Western North Carolina + Los Angeles. He is also an American Film Institute (AFI) Alumni and an American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Vision Mentee.

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Contact

For inquiries, please contact [email protected].