Daniel Chein is an independent filmmaker whose work explores transculturalism and expressions of identity in the performative. His latest short About a Home will have its world premiere at the 2021 Slamdance Film Festival. His last short film Basha Man premiered at CAAMFest2017, where it won the AT&T Film Award. His feature documentary in production, Sonsplitter, profiles a gay German Turk dancer for the internationally renowned Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch confronting traumatic silence within his family.
Daniel has collaborated with other filmmakers as an editor on Objector (2018) and Changa Revisited (2016); a director of photography on The Celine Archive (2020) and A Di Da (WIP); an associate producer on Our Time Machine (2018); and co-director/co-producer on Hoodie (WIP).
Daniel is a member of A-Doc and a board member of the Global Lives Project. Recently, he was a 2018 BAVC National Mediamaker Fellow, a North Star Resident at the Points North Institute, and a recipient of the Princess Grace Award in Film. Daniel is currently a SFFILM FilmHouse resident and visiting faculty at the University of California Berkeley. He received a BA in Anthropology and an MFA in Cinema from San Francisco State University.
2018
Director/Camera
Sonsplitter (in production)
2018
Co-Director/Producer
Hoodie (30 min) (in production)
2018
Associate Producer
Ma Liang’s Time Machine (85 min) (in post-production)
2017
Producer/Editor
American War (53 min)
2016
Director/Editor
Basha Man (12 min)
- AT&T Student Film Award, CAAMFest 2017
- Award of Recognition, IndieFEST
2016
Editor
Lives in Transit, Global Lives Project (32 min)
- World Premiere, New York Film Festival
2016
Assistant Editor
Almost Sunrise (110 min)
2016
Assistant Editor
Out Run (75 min)
2016
Director/Editor
Shoot Me I’m Beautiful (6 min)
2016
Director/Camera
The Fallow Land (5 min)
2015
Editor
Changa Revisited (60 min)
- Best Documentary, ASTRA Film Festival
2013
Editor
The Chairman and the Lions (47 min)
- First Prize, ETNOFilm Festival
- Jury Award, Zanzibar International Film Festival
2018
BAVC National Mediamaker Fellowship
2017
Princess Grace Award in Film
2016
Student Grant, Berkeley Film Foundation
Aurelio Alves Scholarship, Santa Barbara Scholarship Foundation
2015
Jake Gimbel Graduate Scholarship, Santa Barbara Scholarship Foundation
2014
Dr. Leslie and Phyllis Wong Scholarship, San Francisco State University
2014-2016
State University Grant, San Francisco State University