Born in Hong Kong and based in Paris, Mary Stephen has been working in narrative film and documentary for more than 30 years as an editor (for both narrative and documentary films), producer, supervisor and even composer.

She has been working years (1980-2006) as an editor for Eric Rohmer. Some of the films they collaborated on are: Les amours d’Astrée et Céladon (The Romance of Astrea and Celadon), Triple Agent, L’Anglaise et le Duc (The Lady and the Duke), Conte d’Automne (Autumn’s Tale), L’Arbre, Le Maire et la Médiathèque (The Tree, the Mayor and the Mediatheque),Les Rendezvous de Paris (Rendezvous in Paris). She has also been the editor of Cogunluk/ Majority by Seren Yüce (Lion of the Future, Venice Film Festival), My Marlon and Brando by Hüseyin Karabey (Best New Narrative Filmmaker, Tribeca), Blind Mountain (Man Shan) by Li Yang (Un Certain Regard, Cannes), Our Time Will Come and the upcoming Love After Love by Ann Hui.

Mary has been working as an editor in numerous award-winning documentaries, among them Buddha In Africa (2019, 90 min) dir Nicole Shafer, The Apology (2015, 120 min) dir. Tiffany Hsiung, L’Afrique vue par Ryszard Kapuscinski (2014, 52 min) dir. Olga Prud’homme Farges, A Young Patriot, (2014, 105 min) and 1428 (2009, 120 min), dir. Du Haibin, The New Empire (2013, 3 hours in 3 parts), dir. Jean-Michel Carré, Last Train Home (2009, 90 min), dir. Lixin Fan.

She is particularly keen on helping shape narratives for emerging filmmakers making their 1st or 2nd films and half of her time is devoted to sharing what she has learned in her work, by seminars and workshops at institutions/festivals in Singapore, China, France, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, Turkey and teaching at La Femis in Paris, Griffiths University in Brisbane, Australia and China Academy of Arts in Hangzhou.

She is tutor/mentor in various programmes such as Cinema College of the Venice Biennale, the A.N.D. (Asian Network of Documentary) in Busan, Yamagata Documentary Dojo, CNEX Documentary Workshop, and was member of jury at film festivals, such as Locarno, Kerala, Fipa Doc, HKIFF Documentary competition etc.   Mary speaks Cantonese, Mandarin, English and French.