Yinan was born and raised in Beijing. After working on a number of ethnographic works in China he moved to the United States and spent a number of years in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Yinan is a filmmaker and photographer, working at the intersection of Chinese and American cultures. His works always deals with the uncertainty and liquidity caused by his identity. As a transplant, continuously adopting, absorbing, and adjusting between where he grew up and where he is living generate an energy. This flux energy constantly sparks interests for his filmmaking and the way he is observing his immediate surrounding.
His works have aired on PBS and played at various venues including United States (US), Austria, Slovenia, Spain, and China. He was awarded the Cream City Cinema Emerging Voices Award by HBO in 2018. He was a fellow at the 74th University Film and Video Association 2020, and 67th Flaherty Film Seminar for 2022.
