Today we’d like to introduce you to Shu Zhang.
Hi Shu, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I’ve been making films for 6 years. Mostly hybrid of fiction and non-fiction. I moved directly from Chengdu, China, to Van Nuys, California, two years and a half ago. Now I’m almost finishing my master’s degree in California Institute of the Arts. Recently, I’m working on my documentary about the unhoused situation here in Van Nuys. Van Nuys now really feels like home to me.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s never a smooth road. However, I have this almost impossible optimism in me, and it helped me a lot. The biggest struggle is the ethical question I encountered when I make my film.
How to have your own vision and stick to it is the hardest part for all artist. Even if there are times that no one believes in you, you must have this almost blind faith in yourself and trust your own guts.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m making observational documentaries. My approach towards my subject could be seen as very controversial. I trying to refuse my audiences easily empathizing with unhoused situation. It is so easy to feel sorry and say that you understand and forget about it. But it’s not easy to admit that we actually don’t understand, we can’t relate, and let’s sit our guilt and shame and thinking about doing something. Also, I like using fixed camera to gaze. Gazing poverty, gazing violence, gazing landscapes and gazing power dynamics. To gaze something that we don’t usually gaze because we have our guilt or shame towards it. I intend to using implication instead of demonstration, I believe my audiences are not passive viewer but people who can really engage themselves and confront themselves while watching my film. I’m very proud of myself that no matter how many critiques I received, how many voices disagree with me, I still have the courage to do what I really want to do. Courage is the only virtue.
What matters most to you? Why?
I think courage is the thing that matters to me the most. One needs courage to be who they want to be. One needs courage to do what they want to do and say what they want to say. To stand up and fight for themselves. Eventually, we can fight for each other.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: shushu_1012
