Producer Nina Yang Bongiovi admits her enthusiasm for being recognized for the profound social and cultural weight of her output.

“Usually producers are kicked to the curb when a movie is released,” she says, laughing. “I always remember walking on a red carpet and they’re like, ‘Oh God, producer, can you step to the side?’ And you’re like, ‘I bled for this film!’”

Born in Taiwan and raised in Los Angeles since age 5, Yang Bongiovi, who will receive Variety’s Creative Impact in Producing Award at the Sun Valley Film Festival and participate in a Coffee Talk on March 31, says she initially did not see any obvious cultural on-ramp into the film industry until her studies at USC made it begin to feel possible. Even so, her first studio job was disappointing. “So I called my friends in Asia, I’m like, ‘Anybody know anyone that could get me into actual filmmaking?’”

After several years in the Hong Kong film industry, she zeroed in her own producorial worldview: “I was like, ‘Gosh, these action sequences are really great, but if they only had a good script,’” she recalls. “And everybody’s like ‘Why is she so annoying? Why is she asking about the script? It’s a storyline.’ And I was just like, ‘Hmm, maybe that’s what producing is: figuring out what their original script should be.’”

After a long and frustrating stint trying to break into the U.S. film business, she found a story that sparked the interest of actor Forest Whitaker, who was contemplating his own foray into producing.

“I was so super naive and made an offer to a guy who won his Oscar not too long ago at that time,” she chuckles. “But he was so kind and said, ‘I really love the story you’re trying to tell,’ because I was trying to talk about culture and race relationships, but through a love story.’”

Partnering with Whitaker to form Significant Pictures, Yang Bongiovi soon made a vital discovery. “An old professor I knew from USC said, ‘There’s a young kid in my class who’s pretty brilliant. You guys should talk to him. His name is Ryan Coogler.’”

Their resulting collaboration, “Fruitvale Station” — also Michael B. Jordan’s breakout film — defined the company’s mandate, she says. “What we wanted to do is to champion storytellers that are historically underrepresented, narratives of color that I really haven’t seen in the marketplace.”

Since then, her prolific output has lived up to that aspiration, powered by an array of fresh filmmaking perspectives, including Rick Famuyiwa’s “Dope” (“Something that younger audiences have found recently and are like, ‘Wow, you’re cool! You made “Dope!”’”); Chloé Zhao’s debut feature “Songs My Brothers Taught Me” (“She continued on changing the landscape of representation”); Boots Riley’s bonkers “Sorry to Bother You” (“The financiers did not read the script and they trusted me, until we showed up at the premiere and they’re like, ‘Oh my God, what did you make?’ And I’m like, ‘Isn’t it revolutionary?’”) and Rebecca Hall’s “Passing,” which Yang Bongiovi calls “super monumental for me.”

“For us to launch it so successfully [with] a huge sale at Sundance with Netflix, then later on, running it for the awards circuit, that was truly art meets commerce and where I’m feeling like I’m at a different level of producing,” she says.

Now, Yang Bongiovi is making major forays into television fueled in part by biopics centered on the likes of comedian Richard Pryor, activist Angela Davis and, particularly close to her heart, Anna May Wong, Hollywood’s first Chinese American movie star.

“Television is so socially impactful, but I don’t want to make dreary, depressing stuff,” she says. “I want to make fun stuff that showcases talent of color and narratives of color and stories that we really haven’t seen, or we can subvert the stereotypes that we’ve been seeing in the last several decades.”

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