Hailed from Shanghai, Merry May Ma is a writer/director based in Los Angeles. As a mushroom-lover dedicated to telling tactile and uplifting stories, she hopes to inspire audiences to “see more, hear more, and feel more” (Sontag, 1964). Her UCLA MFA thesis film, GARDENERS, won the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant and Panavision New Filmmaker Grant. GARDENERS explores how seemingly unrelated things, like nano-science and mushrooms, are deeply connected.