Zhang Yuan
Zhang Yuan, Cines del Sur 2007
Born	October 1963 (age 61) Nanjing,Jiangsu
Occupation	Film director
Spouse	Ning Dai
Awards	Tiger Award - Rotterdam 1996Sons Best Director - Mar del Plata 1996East Palace, West Palace Best Director - Gijón 1999Seventeen Years Special Director's Award - Venice 1999Seventeen Years
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	張元
Simplified Chinese	张元
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Zhāng Yuán

Zhang Yuan (simplified Chinese:张元;traditional Chinese:張元;pinyin:Zhāng Yuán; born October 1963) is aChinesefilm director who has been described by film scholars as a pioneering member ofChina'sSixth Generation of filmmakers.^[1] He and his films have won ten awards out of seventeen nominations received at international film festivals.^[2]

Born inNanjing, the capital ofJiangsu Province, Zhang received aBA incinematography from theBeijing Film Academy in 1989.^[1] Having initially emerged onto the film scene shortly after theTiananmen Square protests of 1989, he is frequently referenced as an exemplar of the pioneers who are grouped into the loosely defined Sixth Generation. Despite a diploma from the prestigious Film Academy, Zhang decided to eschew his assigned position within thePeople's Liberation Army-connected August First Film Studio, choosing instead to produce his films independently.^[3] As a fledgling filmmaker, he chose to shoot in a documentary style and has referred to these early films (Mama,Sons, andBeijing Bastards) as "documentary feature-films."^[4]

Aside from some original short subjects he directed as a student filmmaker, the official debut of his career in 1990 isMama, a semi-documentary account of a mother and her retarded son, which is considered to have a historical spot as one of the first features of the Sixth Generation movement and as China's "first independent film since 1949".^[5] His next film, 1993'sBeijing Bastards follows Beijing's disaffected youth subculture and another title,Sons, in the same manner asMama, blends the line between fiction and documentary film, as the actors, playing themselves, recreate the actual destruction of their family due to alcoholism and mental illness. However, the transgressive nature of these films (which depicted Chinese youth and society in harsh and unflattering imagery and terms), quickly came to the attention of the Chinese authorities. By April 1994, the Ministry of Film, Television and Culture issued a statement banning Zhang from filmmaking.^[6] Also banned were fellow Sixth-Generation directorsHe Jianjun,Wang Xiaoshuai, the documentary filmmakerWu Wenguang, Fifth Generation directorTian Zhuangzhuang, and Zhang's wife, screenwriter Ning Dai, whose sister, directorNing Ying, is a transitional figure between the Fifth and Sixth Generation. In 1996, two years after the ban went into force, Zhang was ready to present his next, and most-controversial, work, the surreptitiously filmedEast Palace, West Palace, also known asBehind the Forbidden City, China's first feature with homosexual characters and, furthermore, their persecution by the police. A print was secretly taken out of China and screened at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.^[7]

AfterEast Palace, West Palace, Zhang's style began to shift away from documentary-like neo-realist dramas to more conventionally filmed features. 1999'sSeventeen Years, a family drama and also the first Chinese film with approval to shoot inside a Chinese prison,^[5] nevertheless proved a significant international success winning the Best Director award at theVenice Film Festival. 2002–2003 continued to see Zhang approaching more commercially viable works as well as his most prolific period yet, directing three films in the course of a year. The cinematic version of the Communist operaJiang Jie, the celebrity-helmed romantic mysteryGreen Tea, and the romantic dramaI Love You were successful, if a far cry from his earlier "underground" works. In 2006, he directedLittle Red Flowers, based on writer and Chinese cultural iconWang Shuo's semi-autobiographical novelIt Could Be Beautiful. The film garnered a CICAE award at the 2006Berlin Film Festival.

Between his feature film efforts, Zhang strives to continue producing long-form documentaries. 1994'sThe Square documents daily life inTiananmen Square, in the immediate years following the events of the 1989 Democracy demonstrations. The surreptitious shoot took the guise of a program production crew forChina Central Television (CCTV).

The late 1990s, meanwhile, saw Zhang indulging again in his interest in documentary form withDemolition and Relocation in 1998, an account of the destruction of Beijing'sHutongs. In 1999, Zhang madeCrazy English, which followedCrazy English-founder and motivational speakerLi Yang in a film Zhang himself described as a cross betweenTriumph of the Will andForrest Gump.^[8] 2000'sMiss Jin Xing, meanwhile, follows Zhang's interest in society's marginalized with a touching portrait of China's most famed transgender individual,Jin Xing, who in 1996 came out as a trans woman. Jin's story is told through a series of interviews with those who know her as well as with Jin herself.

Besides films, Zhang has also directed numerousmusic videos and commercials. His most fruitful collaboration was with Chinese musicianCui Jian, resulting in several music videos, including the winner of the Best Asian Video,Wild in the Snow, at the 1991MTV Music Video Awards.^[8] In 2000 he was a member of the jury at the22nd Moscow International Film Festival.^[9]

• Official site^[usurped]
• Zhang Yuan atIMDb
• Cinemovie.info: Robert Bresson Vatican Award 2006 to Zhang Yuan
• Interview with Zhang Yuan

• Beijing Film Academy alumni
• Chinese documentary filmmakers
• Film directors from Jiangsu
• Artists from Nanjing
• Living people
• 1963 births
• Venice Best Director Silver Lion winners
• Chinese film directors

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