Nicholas Ma | |
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Born | 1983 |
Alma mater | |
Occupation | Film producer, film director |
Employer |
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Works | Won't You Be My Neighbor? |
Parent(s) |
Nicholas Ma (born circa 1983) is a film director and producer who is best known for producing the 2018 award-winning documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor?.[1]
He was born around 1983 to Yo-Yo Ma and Jill Hornor.[1][2][3] He has one sibling, Emily Ma who was born around 1985.[2][3] Nicholas Ma attended Harvard University and graduated in 2005.[4] He went on to work at the McKinsey & Company at both their New York City and Shanghai locations. He also worked with Senator John Kerry on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee focusing on global economic policy.[5] In 2013, he left McKinsey & Company.[6] He later went back to school and attended New York University Tisch School of the Arts and received a Master of Fine Arts in Film & Television in 2017.[6][7] Ma, alongside Morgan Neville and Caryn Capotosto, produced Morgan Neville's 2018 award-winning documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor?.[1][8] Ma and Neville had interacted before on Neville's 2015 documentary The Music of Strangers, which was about the Silk Road Ensemble formed by Ma's father.[9]
In 2019, Ma's 15 minute documentary short SUITE NO. 1, PRELUDE was shown at DOCNYC, which focused on his father's re-recording of the first cello piece he learned.[10][11] Also in 2019, Ma's first feature film Mabel won the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award of $100,000 and was also supported by the Tribeca Film Institutes' Sloan Filmmaker Fund.[11][12] Mabel focuses on a young child's friendship with a potted plant and her teacher who introduced her to botany.[11] Mabel was co-written with Joy Goodwin.[11] Actors such as Christine Ko, Judy Greer, and Lexi Perkel are all slated to star in Mabel.[13][14] In 2022, Ma worked with Alison Klayman on the documentary Unfinished Business, which focused on the New York Liberty women's basketball team and the WNBA.[15][16] Unfinished Business was shown at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival.[16]