Chloé Zhao

Zhao Ting was born and raised in Beijing to Zhao Yuji, former general manager of a state-owned steel company.[2][3] Her parents are separated and her father remarried to actress Song Dandan. Growing up, she was very rebellious, and drawn to influences from Western pop culture.[4] She attended a boarding school in London before moving to Los Angeles to finish high school.[5] Zhao studied at Mount Holyoke College earning a bachelor's degree in political science.[6] She worked odd jobs as a party promoter, in real estate, and bartending before studying film production at New York University Tisch School of the Arts.[2][7]

In 2010, Zhao's short film Daughters premiered at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival and won Best Student Live Action Short at the 2010 Palm Springs International ShortFest and Special Jury Prize at the 2010 Cinequest Film Festival.[8][9]

In 2015, Zhao directed her first feature film, Songs My Brothers Taught Me. Filmed on location at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the film depicts the relationship between a Lakota Sioux brother and his younger sister. The film premiered as part of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at Sundance Film Festival.[10] It later played at Cannes Film Festival as part of the Director's Fortnight selection.[11] The film was nominated for Best First Feature at the 31st Independent Spirit Awards.[12]

In 2017, she directed The Rider, a contemporary western drama which follows a young cowboy’s journey to discover himself after a near-fatal accident ends his professional riding career.[13] Similar to her first feature, Zhao utilised a cast of non-actors who lived on the ranch where the film was shot.[14] Zhao's impetus for making the film came when Brady Jandreau – a cowboy whom she met and befriended on the reservation where she shot her first film – suffered a severe head injury when he was thrown off his horse during a rodeo competition.[15] Jandreau later starred in the film playing a fictionalised version of himself as Brady Blackburn. The film premiered at Cannes Film Festival as part of the Directors' Fortnight selection and won the Art Cinema Award.[16] The film earned her nominations for Best Feature and Best Director at the 33rd Independent Spirit Awards. At the same ceremony, Zhao became the inaugural winner of the Bonnie Award, named after Bonnie Tiburzi, which recognizes a mid-career female director.[17][18] The film was released on April 13, 2018 by Sony Pictures Classics and was critically acclaimed.[19] Peter Keough of The Boston Globe wrote: "[The film] achieves what cinema is capable of at its best: It reproduces a world with such acuteness, fidelity, and empathy that it transcends the mundane and touches on the universal."[20]

Zhao resides in California, United States.[2]

Critical and commercial reception to Zhao's directorial features.

• Chloé Zhao on IMDb