NYWIFT Blog

By Briana Wilson

Welcome to NYWIFT, Vanessa Hope!

Vanessa Hope is an award‑winning filmmaker whose work sits at the intersection of cinema, foreign policy, and human rights, with a focus on women’s leadership in volatile political landscapes.

She has directed and produced fiction and nonfiction films across the United States, China, Afghanistan, and Taiwan, that have premiered at major festivals such as Sundance, Cannes, and IDFA. Her latest documentary, Invisible Nation, offers intimate, unprecedented access to Taiwan’s first female president, Tsai Ing‑wen, and has been embraced as a landmark portrait of a small democracy confronting mounting authoritarian pressure.

She co‑founded Double Hope Films with producer Ted Hope. She also writes the Substack newsletter Dream of a Better World and hosts the podcast vHopeful Conversations, where she champions the independent film and documentary community through in‑depth, craft‑driven dialogues.

NYWIFT Member Vanessa Hope

Welcome to NYWIFT! Could you give our readers a brief introduction to yourself?

I’m a filmmaker and storyteller focused on leadership, service, democracy, and the human consequences of geopolitics. Before directing features, I worked on Asia policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, and that background deeply informs how I approach questions of power, narrative, and accountability.

I’ve directed and produced films in the United States, China, Afghanistan, and Taiwan, often working with women who are leading in difficult contexts—whether in presidential palaces, protest movements, or fragile institutions.

Through Double Hope Films, which I co‑founded with my partner Ted Hope, I develop international projects that illuminate how women are reshaping political and cultural narratives, and connect those struggles for audiences around the world.

DP Magela Crosignani and I in 2009, shooting All Eyes and Ears, my feature documentary directorial debut, which we made almost entirely on our own in China on a shoestring budget — with me on sound. We’re about to board a 22‑hour train from Xining to Lhasa with Ambassador Huntsman and his delegation. I’d been traveling to Beijing since 1991 and knew all too well the Chinese Communist Party’s insistence on a single “official” story about Tibet, Tiananmen, and Taiwan, which at that point I was still afraid to speak up about. I was there in the name of U.S. diplomacy, following the Ambassador to China, yet that train ride became one of the scariest experiences of my life, and of Magela’s. She was just visiting Ted and me recently with her boyfriend from Argentina, where she now lives, and we found ourselves reliving every moment of that journey. I’ve written a screenplay about this trip that will likely never be made — because… China and the U.S., and their shared censorship and control of truth in service of authoritarian power.

What brought you to NYWIFT? 

NYWIFT felt like a natural home not only because “once a New Yorker, always a New Yorker,” but because so much of my work focuses on women leading under pressure and the ecosystems that either support or undermine them. From Taiwan’s first female president to organizers and advocates in places like China, Afghanistan, and the U.S., I’ve seen how women are quietly transforming political and cultural narratives—often without the visibility or resources they deserve.

NYWIFT is one of the rare spaces that not only recognizes that labor but actively invests in women’s creative and leadership power. I wanted to be part of that global, intergenerational network, and to both learn from and contribute to a community that understands how urgent women’s stories are right now.

DP Magela Crosignani and I filming Ambassador Huntsman, his wife Mary Kaye, and the U.S. diplomatic delegation in Lhasa, Tibet.

What drew you to filmmaking from a career in foreign policy?

Working in foreign policy made it clear that global power is, in many ways, a battle over stories—who gets heard, whose security counts, whose courage is acknowledged.

At the Council on Foreign Relations, I watched decisions about war, peace, and democracy being made at a distance from the women and communities most affected. Film offered a way to close that distance, to bring audiences into the rooms and lives of women leaders, dissidents, and citizens on the ground, and to render abstract policy debates through human experience.

Moving into filmmaking was my way of shifting from analyzing power to amplifying those working to transform it, and to use cinema as a tool for empathy, memory, and accountability.

I recently did a vHopeful Conversation podcast interviewing Penny Lane about her outstanding new doc, WILD INSIDE, which premieres in Central Park Wednesday, July 29th—the evening you’re publishing this piece. One idea we discussed is that every documentary begins with many ideals and goals, but perhaps chief among them is the impossible ambition to understand what it is like to be someone or something other than oneself, and to communicate that experience with empathy. This holds true for both feature documentaries I’ve directed. In the case of ALL EYES AND EARS, the ambition was to know what it is like to be a U.S. Ambassador to China.

I’d long been interested in diplomacy and international relations. Though most people look at me and still don’t believe it, I do speak Chinese and invested a ton of time in learning it. I knew there was much to critique in the story of the US and China. In the case of INVISIBLE NATION the ambition was to learn what it is like to be the first female president of a Democratic Progressive Party in a country that is underrepresented on the world stage—advanced in its democracy yet wildly misunderstood, claimed, and disputed.

In both films, I began production before knowing who would fill the role of Ambassador or President. I focused on the role and the circumstances, which aligns with how public service should function: prioritizing the service over the individual. “L’état, c’est moi,” as our president mistakenly believes, represents the lunacy of a dictator.

DP Laura Hudock and I at a night market in Tainan, Taiwan with Teri Woo on sound, shooting Invisible Nation. Teri is focused on acting now.

Invisible Nation takes an inside look at the tenure of Taiwan’s first female president. How would you describe the experience of filming so closely with a world leader? Is there a significant moment that sticks out to you?

I would describe the experience as one of the most memorable and meaningful of my life. It was exciting, humbling, and so illuminating. Invisible Nation allowed me to follow a woman leader navigating one of the world’s most precarious geopolitical positions while remaining grounded, understated, and deeply accountable to her citizens. Filming so closely with President Tsai Ing‑wen meant building trust over years and constantly balancing respect for the demands of high office with a commitment to emotional and political honesty. A moment that stays with me is watching her prepare to address the public during a major cross‑Strait flare‑up.

This is a subject her team did not want her to discuss with me during her first few years in office because it was so unbelievably high-stakes and sensitive. President Tsai was calm, meticulous, and utterly focused on protecting her people rather than projecting personal grandeur. It felt like a model of leadership that is both deeply feminist and universally instructive: power rooted in responsibility, not spectacle. President Tsai continually showed that women’s leadership must be understood as central, not supplemental, to our shared future.

DP Laura Hudock and I as we exited a military aircraft to land on Penghu island to film military drills—which you see in Invisible Nation with then President Tsai Ing-wen.

One of the goals of your Substack, Dream of a Better World, is to “examine the systems, histories, and movements that shape what gets seen and who gets heard and why.” What is your perspective on the filmmaker’s responsibility in shaping that reality?

Dream of a Better World exists because stories are one of the primary tools through which power decides who is visible, credible, and safe. Women and minority filmmakers, and authors are still too often sidelined in that process.

As filmmakers, we are never neutral; every aesthetic and narrative decision shapes whose leadership looks “natural,” whose dissent looks “threatening,” and whose aspirations feel plausible. I see my responsibility as threefold: to do the structural homework; to stay accountable to the women and communities I film; and to invite audiences to question the hierarchies they’ve inherited about which countries, voices, and visions matter. 

The goal is to widen the imaginative space for more just and inclusive forms of power and storytelling.

DP Laura Hudock and I just before boarding then–President Tsai Ing‑wen’s Air Force One.

What has been the most exciting or challenging aspect of producing international films?

The most exciting part of producing international films is collaborating with women and communities who are rewriting the terms of leadership in their own contexts—from East Asia to the Middle East to the United States. You witness forms of courage, creativity, and everyday governance that rarely make it into mainstream coverage, and you can help connect their stories to global audiences who may not otherwise encounter them. 

The challenge is that the same forces these stories confront—authoritarianism, disinformation, entrenched patriarchy—also shape access, security, and distribution, especially for women and minority filmmakers all over the world. Navigating censorship, safety, and limited resources while protecting participants and crews is demanding and sometimes painful, but it also underscores why these films have to exist and why we need more infrastructure in film to support them.

Earlier in 2009, DP Magela Crosignani shot and I produced director Zeina Durra’s feature directorial debut The Imperialists Are Still Alive! in NYC. Our production designer was Jade Healy, who just worked on Olivia Wilde’s The Invite which is excellent!

Looking ahead, what are you excited to explore in the next phase of your career journey?

Looking ahead, I’m excited to keep building a body of work on global leadership—in particular, how women are governing, organizing, and imagining alternatives in a time of resurgent authoritarianism. Ted and I have many film projects in development and a special scripted series we’re working on.

One of my next major documentary directing projects is with Vital Voices, following women in countries around the world whose work spans justice, climate, tech, and economic equity. I’ll start shooting at the start of the Venice Film Festival in September, during the Vital Voices Global Dialogue. Ted is on the Venice debut film jury, a huge honor.

In addition to vHopeful Conversations and the podcast Love Is a Crime, I’m developing a new filmed series and video podcast called You Only Live Once. The series uses my grandparents’ archive—actress Joan Bennett, a pre‑Code ingénue and film noir icon, and producer Walter Wanger, a pioneering independent and former Academy president—as the prism for 38 classic films of theirs and 38 conversations with some of today’s greatest directors. It’s a love letter to cinema and a way of asking what these films can still teach us about culture, power, and progress. 

I’m part of the Fall of Freedom film community. I want to share that October 2-3-4 will be here before we know it. If you’re planning an exhibition, concert, performance, screening, gathering, reading, workshop, or public action, now is the time to get it on the calendar.

Register your event and begin building your October activation. The Organizer Toolkit walks through how to activate locally, and our Social Media Toolkit makes it easy to share your event and connect it to the national campaign.

Follow Vanessa Hope via her Substack (Dream of a Better World) or her podcasts (vHopeful Conversations and Love is a Crime), or on Instagram at @vhopeful.

If you would like to host a community screening of Invisible Nation, the film can be reserved on Kinema. For anyone who would like to stream the film on their own, Invisible Nation is still available on PBS! Learn more at www.invisiblenation.net.

(All images courtesy of Vanessa Hope)