AFMA Presents

SHE AND IT (USC)

Lanzhu Jian  |  5m43s

 

 

Lanzhu Jian is a passionate filmmaker from the Miao Minority Culture in the Southwest of China. Her interest in the creative arts started at the age of 13 when she met a group of beat generation artists, poets and musicians who were activists in early 2000s in China. She started a small movie club with them in Xiamen — a coast City near Taiwan, called “Dream Traveler". There they screened movies which were not open to Chinese audiences at that time. Today this movie club has become one of the biggest folk art communication centers in Xiamen. When she turned 16, she quit high school and moved to Beijing on her own, to study art in order to pursue her dreams of being an artist and director. During her undergraduate studies at Beijing Film Academy, she focused on experimental animation, specializing in stop motion and pixilation. She also dabbled in various other fields of art in cooperation with artists from installation, photography and theater. 

 

When she turned 19, She worked as a photographer's assistant and interpreter for a Photographer from Switzerland who was researching an article in Tibet. Her footsteps were also left in Europe and most major provinces in China. At the age of 20, she and some friends were interviewing the underground rock bands and musicians in Beijing, who were fighting for their life under the special political system in China.

 

After she turned 22, she traveled as a photographer to her hometown in Guizhou province together with a Danish anthropologist who was conducting a study of "guanxi", the Chinese variant of the network society and how it is utilized in the day-to-day life of Chinese people. The trip greatly inspired her to tell the story of Chinas ongoing turmoil and change, and how it affects the lives and world-views of the Chinese people. 

 

During 2011 to 2013, while study at USC, Lanzhu Jian was awarded The Muller Family Scholarship,

T.C.Wang Fellowship and Gene Autry Endowed Scholarship for her ability as a filmmaker.  Her short film Liberty nominated by several film festivals around the world. Her new short film《She and It》nominated by Official selection by Adobe First Frame and will be screened at Director’s Guild of America soon. She currently graduated from USC and ready to create something new and exciting in the world.