Bush Foundation Fellowships

Va-Megn Thoj

2005 Bush Artist Fellowship
Minnesota

Career Field: Media Arts
Secondary Field: Film

Va-Megn Thoj is a filmmaker in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Trained in film and literary criticism at Indiana University, in film production at Third World Newsreel, and in public policy and administration at the University of Minnesota, he has produced and directed TV commercials, narrative shorts, and documentaries and authored several feature screenplays. He is currently directing two documentaries, American Soil and Catches of the Spirit. American Soil is about Hmong American farmers and their American dream, while Catches of the Spirit investigates American multiculturalism and racial discourse, challenging the portrayal of Hmong Americans as aliens incapable of Americanizing. He has co-authored with Louisa Schein for American Quarterly, “Occult Racism: The Masking of Race in the Hmong Hunter Incident,” a dialogue that juxtaposes his screenplay Die By Night with public discourse on Hmong Americans to illuminate the racial dimension of the recent Hmong-white hunter murders in Wisconsin. A recipient of several peer awards for TV commercials, he has also received the Bush Artist Fellowship, the Bush Leadership Fellowship, and the Media Artist Fellowship from the Tribeca Film Institute and Renew Media.