Mitch & Yao Lee

You have to stay true to yourself, have to stay true to the community. So, I built that relationship with the community.Mitch and Yao Lee are a Hmong American filmmaking and broadcasting team based in Minnesota whose work centers on documenting, informing, and connecting the Hmong community. Mitch began working with media at a young age and has built decades of experience as a filmmaker, broadcaster, videographer, and content producer. In 2014, he left other employment to pursue media production full time, developing a practice that encompasses community news, interviews, event coverage, studio production, and commercial media. Yao works alongside Mitch as a production partner, contributing both on camera and behind the scenes while supporting the technical and organizational demands of their productions.Together, Mitch and Yao approach their work as both a creative partnership and a community responsibility. Their years of documenting Hmong people, events, and issues have helped them build relationships and trust within the community, positioning their media work as a bridge between Hmong audiences and the broader institutions that seek to reach them. Looking forward, they hope to expand beyond news and event coverage to create original educational, cultural, and entertainment programming that provides new opportunities for younger generations of Hmong artists and audiences.