What Do We Call This?

Barbie Leung is a queer, narrative-focused director of photography and operator, born and raised in New York. As a child that struggled to fit in anywhere, films offered her expansive new worlds to belong to.

A two-time film school reject, Barbie has served as director of photography on 40+ shorts and two features while crewing in both G&E and camera, proudly joining Local 600 in 2020. She is mentored by accomplished cinematographers Adrian Peng Correia and Armando Salas, ASC, as part of the 2022 ASC Vision Mentorship program. Barbie was also named a 2024 Sundance ReFrame Rise Cinematography fellow.

What Do We Call This? was shot on Alexa Mini and Zeiss Super Speed MKIII’s over 3 days in Queens, NY, and Bayonne, NJ. Art imitated life when director Anna Mikami asked Barbie to lens the 1990’s period film in which the character of Julia becomes a single mother after her husband’s untimely death, and then forms an unexpected bond with the only person who understands her grief: the other woman, Yiqing. In real life, Barbie’s father passed away a few weeks before she read the beautiful script filled with familiar characters and places. The timeliness of the project was impossible to deny, and lead Barbie to work on a production where every crew member above and below the line brought their ambition, talent, and dedication.

Being honored by the ECA is a culmination of a decade of dreaming. Barbie is thankful for the knowledge and generosity of her mentors, colleagues, partners, and friends.