Production Division Alumnus, Lenti Liang’s short film, “Our Secrets” won the “Light on Women’s Worth Award” at the Cannes Film Festival 2026. The 15-minute film is described as a young girl’s quiet awakening of desire, “but what follows, drifts away from what she had imagined.”

The award was presented by actress Gillian Anderson in May. The journey of the production of this film began years before in Production’s CTPR533 Directing Techniques with Professor James Savoca as a short exercise that explored similar themes. It was later developed into a film in CTPR565 Media for Social Change with Professors John Watson and Jeremy Kagan. Liang told us that: “Over the course of the semester, I wrote more than seven different versions of the story. The most challenging part was finding the right perspective and dramatic structure.”

Professor Kagan remembers that her film was “…exceptional…she chose a subject that mattered to her - the abuse of women by doctors.” Professor Watson remembers that “This is Lenti’s story to tell [and] I probably read three or four versions of the script during the semester, and gave notes, before she made the decision to shoot it in China the following Spring.”

Liang recalls that “The feedback process was incredibly valuable. Because the story was inspired by experiences and emotions that felt personally close to me, it was sometimes difficult to step back and evaluate the material objectively.”

The final version of “Our Secrets” is stunning in its pacing, simplicity and depth, and most importantly in its poetic vision of a clear yet restrained portrayal of personal trauma. She told us: “I was more interested in creating space for conversations about the blurry boundary between care and violation, authority and trust, and how young people process experiences that they themselves may not fully understand.”

In addition to the win at Cannes, “Our Secrets” just won the Best Short Film Award at the Pingyao, China, International Film Festival, and is now on its way to the Cairo International Film Festival.

Screenplay, Directing, and Producing by Lenti Liang; Editing by April Liu; Cinematography by Becky Baihui Chen. https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/tian-tian-de-mi-mi/

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