Alex Jiang

2026 Diverso Fellow
New York University

Out of the Garden
Logline: In a remote Hakka village, a girl’s first period triggers a sacred rite of passage. When a fifteen-year-old who once longed to bleed discovers that girls who reject the ritual are transformed into the birds it sacrifices, she chooses to become what the system fears the most.

Alex Jiang is a writer, director, and producer originally from Hong Kong and based in New York City. Her work explores culture, gender, and identity through a feminist and Asian diasporic lens, often centering young women and queer characters navigating the discomfort, silences, and mythologies that shape their bodies. Her work moves between grounded realism and genre, drawing from folklore, body horror, and magical realism. 

She holds a BFA from the USC School of Cinematic Arts and is currently pursuing an MFA in writing and directing at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Her short films have screened at the Palm Springs International ShortFest, the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, and the Taiwan International Queer Film Festival, among others. She is a participant of the 2023 Shanghai International Film Festival Director’s Lab, a recipient of the WTC Johnson Scholarship, and a 2026 NYU Tisch HEAR US grantee.