Marilla Li ’10 — Film As Cultural Lens
 “I was raised on films,” says Marilla Li ’10, a Bayside, New York native who recalls spending much of her childhood enthralled not only by the Disney animated classics, but also movies like The Wiz, Rainman, and My Fair Lady.
When she arrived at Barnard after the Bronx High School of Science, one of the first classes Li took was “Culture Through Film and Media,” in the anthropology department, with Columbia adjunct professor Pegi Vail. “We had to watch films at the Margaret Mead Film Festival at the Museum of Natural History,” recalls Li. “I fell in love with anthropology, the film festival, and documentary filmmaking.” When Li, an anthropology major, found out about an internship with the Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival at the American Museum of Natural History, the fit seemed a natural and not just because the festival was founded in honor of fellow Barnard woman Margaret Mead ’23, one of the world's most well-known and respected cultural anthropologists.
Her responsibilities include reviewing entries for possible inclusion in the festival, handling submissions and fees, and acting as a liaison between distribution companies and the festival. She also researches other festivals and produces various promotional materials.
Li will continue to work with the Margaret Mead Film Festival as an intern through the fall (the festival takes place November 12 through 15), and she’ll add another internship with a documentary filmmaker/producer. She had previously worked as a production intern with Ruby Pictures, which helped her land the coveted position with the Margaret Mead Film Festival.
On campus, Li is equally passionate and focused. She served as the political chair of the Asian-American Alliance at Columbia, where she directed and produced a 17-minute documentary, Asian-American Beauty: A Discourse on Body Image, which won an award from the Asian-American International Film Festival. She’s also a peer educator with Barnard’s Well-Woman program, where she serves as the film series curator. “Being a ‘Well Woman’ taught me how to find balance,” says Li, a skill she’ll use as she plans her senior thesis.
Li has certainly found her niche, one that combines her loves for anthropology and film. “I definitely want to work in film production,” she says, although she hasn’t ruled out the possibility of graduate school in culture and media. “I’m interested in visual media … and documentary as a widespread way of communicating.”
Watch Asian-American Beauty: A Discourse on Body Image
—Merri Rosenberg '78
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