About
Lan-Xi Ruan is a Chinese filmmaker and photographer based in Berlin. She studied directing at the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB) and holds a M.F.A on Literature of Film and Drama.
During her studies, she began exploring hybrid cinematic forms, leading to her independently producing and directing the docufiction “Berlin, without me” a film that blurs boundaries between personal documentary and constructed narrative. Siew Hua Yeo joined as executive producer, supporting its development as a formal study in nonfiction- fiction interplay. Initially selected as a finalist for the Doha Film Fund post-production track for feature length in 2021, the film was completed in 2025 as a mid-length film, produced by Chickpea Entertainment (Germany), in association with Incantation Films (Singapore).
Her first narrative feature film, “The Plant from the Canaries,” is currently in post -production, produced by DFFB, co-produced by Chickpea Entertainment, where she again as both producer and director.
As a photographer, she has been invited to Ping Yao International Photography Festival on 2014, with the Monochrome documentary series “Dali” and later curated by Wang Bing as her first solo exhibition in Dali, China. During the lockdown of the pandemic in Berlin, she created her latest photography work, a staged series titled “Soft Animal”, which was featured in Fotograf Magazine(Czech Republic).