Kayla Tong is a director and cinematographer based in New York City. Hailing from Hong Kong and having lived across Los Angeles, London and Lisbon, she jokes that the most perplexing question to answer is, "Where are you from?" With a rich background in cinematography, her work has been featured in venues such as The New Yorker Documentary Series, PBS, ViuTV (Hong Kong), Busan International Film Festival, ZINEBI and the New Orleans Film Festival. Her autobiographical short film, Home Is Where the Sunsets, which screened at numerous festivals worldwide, earned her the Best Director award at the Sacramento Asian Pacific Film Festival. Currently, she is immersed on her directorial feature debut, Home/Land, recognized by Docs by the Sea Storytelling Lab, AIDC's Cut to the Chase Project Market, EURODOC and Dok Leipzig’s DOK Preview. She is an alumna of the USC School of Cinematic Arts, as well as a cinematography fellow at the Asian Film Academy and a directing fellow in the Armed with a Camera Fellowship.

Kayla's filmmaking weaves together the meticulous planning and visual artistry of narrative cinema with the raw immediacy and emotional depth of documentary. This hybrid approach defines her unique style, enabling her to find beauty in the mundane and spontaneity in the structured. Passionate about storytelling, she uses film as a medium to explore complex human experiences and societal issues. Her work reflects a worldview shaped by her rootless upbringing, and through her lens, she explores common ground within the diverse tapestry of human life. And when she's not crafting films, she's probably wrestling with a new language—just for the thrill (and occasional confusion) of it.

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2023 - AIDC Cut to the Chase Market (Project Selection for "Home/Land")
2023 - EURODOC International Lab for Creative Documentary Production (Project Selection for "Home/Land")
2022 - Docs by the Sea International Documentary Lab and Forum, Indonesia
2021 - Film Development Fellowship at Renaissance Foundation Hong Kong
2021 - ViuTV Hong Kong TV Broadcast for “Ateh”
2021 - Audience Award & Special Mention for “Ateh” at Hong Kong Fresh Wave Intl Film Festival
2021 - New Yorker Documentary Series Official Selection for “Herselves”
2019 - New Orleans Film Festival Official Selection for “Morning Passing on El Cajón Boulevard”
2017 - European Union Erasmus Mundus Scholarship for Studies in Cinematography
2017 - Best Director Award for “Home is Where the Sunsets” at Sacramento Asian Pacific Film Fest.
2016 - Armed With a Camera Fellowship Directing Fellow at LA Asian Pacific Film Fest.
2014 - Asian Film Academy Cinematography Fellow at Busan Intl Film Fest., South Korea

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Kayla Tong 是一位現居紐約的導演兼攝影師。出生於香港的她，曾經在洛杉磯、倫敦和里斯本生活，常常笑稱「你從哪裡來？」是她最難回答的問題。擁有豐富的攝影經驗，她的作品曾在《紐約客》紀錄片系列、PBS、香港ViuTV，以及釜山國際電影節、ZINEBI、新奧爾良電影節等平台和活動中展出。她的自傳短片《家在日落處》在全球各大影展放映，並為她贏得薩克拉門托亞太電影節的最佳導演獎。目前，她正全心投入執導首部長片《Home/Land》，該片已獲得Docs by the Sea故事實驗室、AIDC's Cut to the Chase項目市場、EURODOC以及萊比錫紀錄片影展DOK Preview的青睞。她畢業於南加州大學電影學院，並曾在亞洲電影學院擔任攝影學員及參與「Armed with a Camera」計劃中擔任導演學員。

Kayla 的電影創作融合了劇情片的精心策劃和視覺藝術性，與紀錄片的真實感和情感深度。這種獨特的風格使她能夠在平凡中找出美感，在結構中捕捉自發的瞬間。她熱愛透過電影講述故事，深入探討人類複雜的情感和社會議題。她的作品受漂泊成長的經歷所啟發，透過鏡頭尋找人類共同的連結。而當她不在創作電影時，可能正為了追求刺激（偶爾也會有點困惑）而學習新的語言。