Zeming Zhang

Zeming Zhang was born in Guangzhou in 1951 and grew up in the Pearl River Film Studio. His formal education was halted in 1966 by the Cultural Revolution and in 1968 he was sent to work on a rubber plantation in Hainan Island. He returned to the studio in 1978, working as a production assistant and on continuity, his ambition to direct. In his spare time he wrote his own screenplays and studied Chinese literature with the Guangdong TV University. The studio was impressed by his script Swan Song and invited him to direct the film as part of an initiative to encourage young film-makers. After the film's international success he went on to direct Dan Yi and Sun And Rain. He went to the UK in 1989, working on projects with the BBC and British Film Institute, culminating in the making of A Date in Portland Street in Hong Kong and London for Golden Harvest and Foreign Moon in London, for Media Asia, in association with BBC Films. In 2007 he co-directed, with Paul Liu, his first documentary, Across the Plateau, produced by Andrew and Harriet Pike, of Ronin Films. He now lives in Hong Kong, developing new projects for film and television.