Shengze Zhu is a filmmaker and producer based in China and Chicago, USA. She co-founded the production company Burn The Film with her partner Zhengfan Yang and they started making films in 2012. Her work often delves into the intricacies of everyday life, transforming the minutiae of quotidian reality into profound reflections of broader social, political, and cultural concerns.

Shengze has made four feature-length documentaries: Out of Focus (2014, Cinéma du Réel), Another Year (2016, Visions du Réel, Sesterce d’or Best Film), Present.Perfect. (2019, IFFR, winner of the Tiger Award), and A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces (2021, Berlinale Forum, Caligari Prize). Her work has been screened at more than 100 film festivals worldwide and garnered widespread acclaim: Another Year was selected by 24 Images magazine (Canada) as one of the “Top 10 films of 2016”; Present.Perfect. received a Special Mention in Cinema Scope‘s “Top 10 Films of 2019” and was named one of the Best Movies of 2019 by Chicago Tribune. The film was also ranked No. 5 on Film Comment’s list of Best Undistributed Films of 2019, while A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces was ranked No. 6 in 2021.