Shengze Zhu

Shengze Zhu is an independent filmmaker and producer whose work explores the politics and poetics of quotidian reality through experiments with time and duration. She co-founded the production company Burn The Film and has made four documentaries since 2012, garnering numerous accolades. Her debut feature OUT OF FOCUS (2014) premiered at Cinéma du Réel at Centre Pompidou. ANOTHER YEAR (2016) received the Best Film Award at Visions du Réel in Switzerland, the Grand Prize at RIDM Montreal, the Critics’ Award at Olhar de Cinema in Brazil, and has been shown at Yamagata, Jeonju, Art of the Real at Lincoln Center, among others. PRESENT.PERFECT. (2019) won a dozen awards including the esteemed Tiger Award at International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Spotlight Award at Cinema Eye Honors, the Best Dox Award at Dokufest in Kosovo, and has screened at over 100 notable film festivals and venues including New Directors/New Films at Lincoln Center/MoMA, the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, and the Institute of Contemporary Art London. Her latest documentary A RIVER RUNS, TURNS, ERASES, REPLACES (2021) received the Caligari Film Prize at Berlinale and has screened at New York Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival, Hot Docs, IDFA, among many others.