Director's Works
Ember Jane Qian
Jane is an award-winning commercial director known for her poetic intimacy, emotionally complex characters, and unflinching eye for the human experience. Born in Shanghai and raised in Los Angeles by overworked immigrant parents, she developed an early obsession with psychology, storytelling, and the quiet tensions that live beneath the surface.
Her work blends cinematic visual language with emotional nuance, often following characters navigating ambition, identity, and the fractures that shape them. Whether it is a fleeting glance or a moment of unraveling, Jane’s films illuminate the beautifully imperfect edges of being human with style, poetry, and precision.
Jane’s work has been recognized by Vimeo Staff Picks, SHOTS, Nowness, CBS, and BuzzFeed. Her accolades include five Clios Sports, an Effie, a 1.4 Award, and the DGA+AICP’s CDDP Fellowship. She was named a SHOOT New Director to Watch and a Young Guns 18 Finalist.
She lives in Los Angeles and is developing film and television projects while continuing to create commercial work that blends cinematic craft with narrative storytelling.
Ember began as a visual poem, something gentle and reflective, a quiet ode to stillness, light, and the renewal found along California’s open roads. But as the film took shape, it revealed a deeper truth. What started as an exploration of subtleties gradually became an exploration of the heart.
What I did not know then was that I was documenting the final days of a relationship that had shaped me for a decade. At the time, the moments we captured felt ordinary, almost tender in their silence. Only in the edit did I begin to see them differently. The stillness held distance. The quiet held a kind of ending. The film became a mirror, showing me what I could not yet name.
This film is a meditation on transformation, a look at the remnants of a relationship that once burned bright and now fades softly into memory. It reflects on what remains after love changes shape and suggests that even in its quietest form, something stays lit. And sometimes, the faintest ember is enough to spark again.
