Shanshan Chen
2026 RAINFOREST INVESTIGATIONS FELLOW (CHINA, CAMBODIA)
Shanshan Chen is a documentary filmmaker and journalist. Her boundary-pushing films explore critical issues including climate justice, gender, and cross-border movement.
With 15 years of experience in nonfiction filmmaking, Chen dedicates herself to in-depth storytelling that sparks conversations and drives change. Having spent over a decade making human-interest documentaries at Thomson Reuters, she brings strong journalistic skills and investigative rigor to her work. Her films have been featured on major platforms, including BBC, PBS, Reuters, Al Jazeera, and TIME.
Chen’s documentary The Schools that Break Children, with BBC Eye, exposed Chinese disciplinary schools that collude with parents to abduct so-called troubled teenagers to “fix” them. It won a Society of Publishers in Asia Award in 2026.
Another investigation with BBC Eye, Catching a Pervert, uncovered a new form of sexual abuse targeting women in East Asia. It received the 2024 CIR Open Source Film Award at the International Journalism Festival. Her 2022 PBS SoCal documentary Fighting for Air followed Inland Empire communities' fight for clean air. It earned two Southern California Journalism Awards.
