Zhang Nuanxin

b. 27 October 1940, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia; d. 28 May 1995, Beijing

Film director, theorist

Daughter of a doctor who was also a connoisseur of literature and art, Zhang studied directing in at the Beijing Film Academy from 1968 to 1972. She married the Beijing writer and critic Li Tuo, and taught directing at her alma mater. Zhang first drew attention in 1979, when she co-authored ‘On the Modernization of the Language of Film’, arguing against the prevailing focus on content over form, and arguing for the director as auteur and for cinematic realism as a means to achieve filmic lyricism rather than merely capturing external reality on screen. In her own work, Zhang sought to express subjectivity by recreating dominant features of her inner landscape.

Assigned as a director of the Beijing Film Academy’s Youth Film Studio, Zhang’s early work, The Seagull (Sha Ou, 1981) and The Drive to Win (1981), won two domestic awards. But it was Sacrificed Youth (Qingchunji, 1985) that brought her international acclaim and an invitation to Paris as a visiting researcher.

Domestically, she is best known for Good Morning, Beijing! (Beijing nin zao, 1991), which won the PRC’s Best Picture and Hong Kong’s Best Chinese Language Film awards. Her most recent work is A Yunnan Story (Yunnan gushi, 1994).

Further reading

Berry, Chris (1988). ‘Interview with Zhang Nuanxin’. Camera Obscura 18 (September): 20–5.

Semsel, George (ed.) (1987). Chinese Film: The State of the Art in the People’s Republic. New York: Praeger.

Zhang, Nuanxin with Li Tuo (1979). ‘On the Modernization of the Language of Film’. In Dianying Yishu [Film Art]. Beijing: publisher not known. Translated in George Semsel, Xia Hong and Hou Jianping (eds) (1990), Chinese Film Theory: A Guide to the New Era. New York: Praeger.

CYNTHIA Y.NING