BIO
b. 1974, Vietnam
EDUCATION
San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco
Laney College, Oakland
City College of San Francisco, San Francisco
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
FILMOGRAPHY
2006 Kieu (24p video, 76 minutes)
2002 Shut Up White Boy (16mm to video, 14 minutes)
2002 Shut Up White Boy (trailer, 16mm to video, 1:41 minutes)
2001 Each Night (hand-processed super 8mm to video, 2:33 minutes)
2000 (Untitled) (16mm, double projection/ film loop)
2000 (Untitled: Funeral) (16mm, double projection/film loop)
GRANTS AND AWARDS
2013 Hermit Award (Unrecognized Artist of the Year), Museum of Transgender Hirstory & Art
2006 Audience Award (Kieu), Calgary Imaginasian Film Festival
2003 Media Arts Award, The Creative Work Fund
2001 Serpent Source Foundation for Women Artists
2001 Kraus Family Foundation Award , World Studio Foundation
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2014 solo exhibition: the sea, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA
2014 solo exhibition: the longest of nights…and other days, Five Pins Project, San Francisco, CA
2003 War and Silence, SomArts Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2002 FOB, Nguoi Viet Gallery, Westminster, CA
2002 Myth and Memory, Works Gallery, San Jose, CA
2001 Census 2000: Asian Pacific Americans, ProArts Gallery, Oakland, CA
2001 Limited Edition: Recent work by Emerging Asian Pacific American Artists, Asia Pacific Cultural Center, Oakland. CA
2000 APAture: A Window on the Art of Young Asian Pacific Americans, SOMArts Gallery, San Francisco,CA
2000 Recognition: Lesbians in the Visual Arts, SOMArts Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2000 Lotus Roots, Seattle Central Community College, Seattle, WA
2000 From Our Lips: Voices of Asian Pacific Islander Lesbians, Luna Sea Women’s Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1999 APAture: A Window on the Art of Young Asian Pacific Americans, The Crucible Steel Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1999 solo exhibition: Untitled, Noe Valley Public Library, San Francisco, CA
1999 un-exposed: Viet Namese women artists, The Bearded Lady, San Francisco, CA
SELECTED FILM SCREENINGS
2025 The Social Life of Film: Anti-Geographies of Collective Desires (D’est), Anorak/Aktionshaus, Berlin, Germany
2025 Let’s Sleep, and We’ll See (Nha San Collective), Muzeum Sztuki/Museum of Art, Łódź, Poland
2023 Cycle #2: Postsocialism as a Method. Anti-Geographies of Collective Desires (D’est/Nha San Collective),Flutgraben e.V., Berlin, Germany
2023 Queer Shorts Directors Love, Dendy Cinemas, Sydney, Australia
2022 Sleep, then See (Nha San Collective), TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art, Szczecin, Poland
2021 NONFLIX (Queer Forever!/Sàn Art/NON-Berlin), Ha Noi/Saigon/HCMC/ Berlin
2019 Đẫm Queer | Queer Lust!, Echo Park Film Center, Los Angeles, CA
2019 A Right to Defiance, Navel, Los Angeles, CA
2019 Đẫm Queer/Queer Lust!, Hanoi DocLab, Ha Noi, Viet Nam
2019 Vuon Lai Xu So Dieu Ky, Queer Forever!, Ha Noi, Viet Nam
2015 OUTsider Festival, Salvage Vanguard Theatre, Austin, TX
2013 MIX New York Queer Experimental Film Festival, The MIX Factory, Brooklyn, NY
2013 SPIRIT: A Century of Queer Asian Activism, Brava Theatre, San Francisco, CA
2007 Black Lily Film & Music Festival, Painted Bride Art Center, Philadelphia, PA
2007 Vietnamese International Film Festival, Nguoi Viet News, Westminster, CA
2006 DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC
2006 Spirit of Humanity Film Festival, Zeitgeist Multidisciplinary Center, New Orleans, LA
2006 Hawai’I International Film Festival, D Cannery Stadium 18 Theatres, Honolulu, Hawai’i
2006 Dallas Vietnamese Film Festival, University of Texas, Arlington, TX
2006 Charlotte Film Festival, ImaginOn, Charlotte, NC
2006 Indie 2006: Mostra de Cinema Mundial, Usina 4, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
2006 Women of Color Film and Video Festival, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA
2006 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, Laemmle's Sunset 5 Theatre, Los Angeles, CA
2006 Calgary Imaginasian Film Festival, John Dutton Theatre, Calgary, Canada
2006 Chicago Asian American Showcase, Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago, IL
2006 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, Camera 12 Cinemas, San Jose, CA
2006 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, Sundance Kabuki Theatre, San Francisco, CA
2004 Hoa No/Bloom (Vietnamese Artists Collective), Galeria de la Raza, San Francisco, CA
2004 Boston Gay & Lesbian Film/Video Festival, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
2003 Lesbisch Schwule Filmtage Hamburg, CinemaxX 8, Hamburg, Germany
2003 Inside Out Toronto Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival, Cumberland Theatre, Toronto, Canada
2003 Boston Gay and Lesbian Film/Video Festival, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
2003 Chicago Asian American Showcase, Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago, IL
2003 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, Castro Theatre, San Francisco, CA
2003 Girls on Film, Artists Television Access, San Francisco, CA
2002 Seoul Queer International Film & Video Festival, Seoul Queer Archive, Seoul, South Korea
2002 EATV (Educational Access Television) Channel 27, San Francisco, CA
2002 MIX: New York Queer Experimental Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives, New York City, NY
2002 LA Freewaves (8th Celebration of Experimental Media Arts), Cal Arts, Northridge Art Galleries, Los Angeles, CA
2002 Lesben Film Festival Berlin, Filmhaus, Berlin, Germany
2002 Rochester Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Little Theatre, Rochester, NY
2002 Homo-a-Go-Go, Capitol Theatre, Olympia, WA
2002 Antimatter: Experimental Short Film and Video Festival, Victoria, Canada
2002 Ladyfest Bay Area, Victoria Theatre, San Francisco, CA
2002 Outfest: Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, The Village, Los Angeles, CA
2002 Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Wilma Theatre, Philadelphia, PA
2002 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, CA
2002 R x D= [eros] + [ethnicity], Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco, CA
2002 Lotus Roots, Video In, Vancouver, Canada
2002 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, Castro Theatre, San Francisco, CA
PRESS
Husse, Suza & Nguyen Quoc Thanh. “Shut Up White Boy.” https://www.d-est.com/publishing/shut-up-white-boy/. 2025.
D’Est & Nha San Collective. “Troi que huong trong xanh nhu loi hat [The Hometown Sky is as Blue as a Song]: Shut Up White Boy by Vu T. Thu Ha.” https://www.d-est.com/shut-up-white-boy/. 2023.
Liu, Runchao. “Making Space in the Age of Cathartic Art: Shut Up White Boy and the DragOn Ladies”. Console-ing Passions: International Conference on Television, Video, Audio, New Media, and Feminism. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/cp2022/program/blue/16/. 2022.
Liu, Runchao. “Sounding Orientalism: Radical Sounds and Affects of Asian American Women Who Rock.” https://conservancy.umn.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/bddb3089-a7a1-46a3-b3f4-b04d86fca915/content. 2021.
Nguyen Quoc Thanh & Gabby Miller. “Đẫm Queer / Queer Lust: Open Dialogue.” Journal of Vietnamese Studies, Vol. 15, Issue 1, pps ISSN X. Winter 2020.
Nault, Curran. “Queercore: Queer Punk Media Subculture.” University of Washington Press. 2017.
California Institute of Integral Studies. "CIIS Today, Fall 2014 Issue: The Sea/September 5, 2014–January 9, 2015/vu t. thu ha." . CIIS Today. Book 2./http://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/ciistoday/2. 2014.
Nha San Collective. “A Pocket Dictionary of Nha San: Vu T. Thu Ha.” https://www.tudiennhasan.com
Phillips, Frances. “Vu T. Thu Ha and Locus Arts.” https://creativeworkfund.org/?portfolio=vu-t-thu-ha-and-locus-arts, April 3, 2014.
Nault, Curran. “Queer as Punk: Queercore and the Production of an Anti-Normative Media Subculture.” https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/ddbffe1a-9a4e-472d-ad9e-75ea4ac4f2ee/content. 2013.
Women of Color. “13th Annual WOC Film and Arts Fest at UCSC Aug 3 - 6.” https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/08/03/18294351.php., 2006.
“Asian American Showcase.” The Chicago Reader, March 30, 2006.
Harvey, Dennis. “Review: Kieu.” Variety, March 28,2006.
“Lien hoan phim SFIAAFF lan thu 24 tai my: cuoc thu suc cua cac dao dien viet kieu.” Nguoi Vien Xu, March 2006.
Chun, Kimberly. “Helping herself: Kieu director Vu T. Thu Ha recasts a Vietnamese epic as a day in the life of a Tenderloin massage parlor worker.” San Francisco Bay Guardian, March 15, 2006.
Evangelista, Benny. “Asian American Film Festival entrants discuss rewards, trials of their craft.” www.SFGate.com (Chronicle Podcasts), March 11, 2006.
G, Allen Johnson. “Asian film festival picks.” San Francisco Chronicle, March 12, 2006.
Wright, Les. “Kieu.” https://www.CultureVulture.net, March 3, 2006.
Chandra, Ravi. “The Making of Kieu.” Nhà Magazine, May/June 2006.
“Films reflect growing acceptance of Asian gays.’’ https://www.yelloworld.org, June 10, 2002.
“Young artists show at the Asia Pacific/Immigration memories inspires Vu.” Oakland Tribune, March 2001.