Mailee Osten-Tan is a Malaysian-German and British documentary filmmaker and photojournalist working in South and Southeast Asia.

Mailee has been based in Bangkok, Thailand, since 2017. She directs and produces short documentary films as part of Palim Pictures, Human Pictures, and Ruom Collective. Her directorial debut Payuun —commissioned by The Guardian Documentaries and supported by the Pulitzer Centre — explores a surprising relationship that grows between migrating dugongs in the south of Thailand and an amateur conservationist trying to save them.

She is a member of Women Photograph and Diversify Photo “Up Next”. In 2022, she was selected for the Eddie Adams Workshop and Missouri Photo Workshop for documentary photography. She studied at the University of Oxford and the University of Exeter, and has a graduate certificate in Film from the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies.

Contact: maileeot@gmail.com

Clients
Getty Images / Bloomberg / CNN / The Telegraph / The Guardian / Der Spiegel / VICE / Al Jazeera / The Examination / Longreads / UNDP / UNFPA / UN Women / WHO / World Vision / Oxfam

Published in
The New York Times / NPR / The Times / Die Zeit / Foreign Policy / Die Presse / Them / Deutsche Welle / South China Morning Post / The Diplomat ++