Meet Jingyi Li

We were lucky to catch up with Jingyi Li recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jingyi, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

It didn’t start on set. It started far from any studio—somewhere deep in the mountains of Yunnan.

I was visiting a small Mosuo village near Lugu Lake. The air was thin, the paths winding, and what I found there was unlike anything I had grown up with. I listened as elders explained the “walking marriage” tradition, where love leaves footprints instead of paperwork. I saw their “gates of life and death,” thresholds that marked beginnings and farewells, not with ceremony, but with rhythm passed down through generations.

Later in Hainan, I met an old Li woman whose face was covered in intricate tattoos. She had outlived most of her friends, yet when she smiled, there was a fire in her eyes. I asked her what the tattoos meant. Her answer wasn’t just history—it was poetry. It wasn’t something a photo could fully capture, or a sentence could explain.

In those moments, I realized something: dialogue is flat. A photograph is still. But people’s lives are not.
The more I listened, the more I wanted to understand.
And the more I understood, the more I felt a responsibility to share—to shape their stories in ways that honored their depth, not just their surface.

That’s how I found my purpose—not just to make content, but to be a bridge between worlds. To use my lens to create empathy, not just imagery. To remind viewers that behind every stranger is a universe of reasons, rituals, and resilience.

As a producer/director, my mission isn’t just to tell stories. It’s to listen until I can no longer stay silent. And then—create.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

As a vertical video producer, I work at the intersection of storytelling and immediacy. My job is to craft stories that unfold within seconds—stories that don’t wait to be watched, they demand to be felt. In an age where audiences are scrolling faster than ever, I’m drawn to the challenge of creating moments that interrupt that scroll—not with noise, but with meaning.

What excites me most about this format isn’t just its pace or virality—it’s its intimacy. A vertical screen is the size of your palm. It’s personal, it’s close. And that proximity gives me the chance to connect with viewers in a direct, human way. Whether I’m producing a heartfelt documentary vignette or a scripted short, my focus is always the same: to make people feel seen, curious, and understood.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Curiosity has always been my compass. It’s what led me to remote villages in Yunnan, to sit and listen without cameras rolling. It’s what made me pause when I met a Li grandmother in Hainan whose face told stories long before she spoke. Curiosity keeps me from assuming I know what a story is—it reminds me to ask, to observe, to feel before I frame. For anyone starting out: never lose your curiosity. Let it lead you into unfamiliar rooms. That’s where the most honest stories are waiting.

Emotional intuition has helped me most as a storyteller. Anyone can operate a camera or edit footage. But sensing when a subject is holding back, or when a silence is more truthful than a line of dialogue—that’s what shapes something real. My advice here: pay attention, not just to words, but to pauses, body language, energy shifts. Human feeling is your most powerful edit point.

And finally, adaptability. Especially in vertical content, you have to pivot constantly—formats shift, trends disappear overnight, algorithms rewrite themselves. But what doesn’t change is your core. The key is to adapt the form, not the soul of your storytelling. Stay flexible, but grounded in your why.

To anyone just beginning: You don’t need all the answers right away. You just need to keep listening, keep making, and keep showing up—even when you’re unsure. Trust that your voice is forming with every attempt

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

One book that has profoundly shaped the way I think, create, and even exist in the world is The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

It’s not an easy read—but that’s part of what made it so impactful. It doesn’t hand you answers; it confronts you with questions. Big ones: about morality, free will, faith, guilt, and love. For me, reading it felt less like consuming a story and more like staring into a mirror that kept changing shape.

What stayed with me most is a moment from the character Ivan, who says, “Everything is permitted.” It’s haunting. That line isn’t about freedom—it’s about responsibility. It made me realize that storytelling isn’t neutral. What I choose to show, what I leave out, how I frame someone’s truth—all of that has moral weight. As a producer and director, especially working in short-form and vertical content, it’s easy to chase engagement metrics. But this book reminded me that every frame carries an ethical fingerprint. Even when time is short, intention matters.

Another thread that struck me was the contrast between Ivan’s intellect and Alyosha’s quiet compassion. It taught me that empathy is not weakness—it’s radical. In my work, especially when documenting people from cultures or backgrounds different from mine, I try to approach each story not as a subject to analyze, but as a soul to understand.

The Brothers Karamazov didn’t just influence my artistic voice—it deepened my human one. It’s a reminder that even in the noise of content, we’re still reaching for meaning. And that meaning often begins in the uncomfortable spaces we’re tempted to skip

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm16355662/?ref_=fn_all_nme_2
• Instagram: aurorjy
• Linkedin: Jingyi Li