Zero Chou Explained

Zero Chou (; born 24 July 1969) is a Taiwanese director and screenwriter.

Life and career

Chou was born in Keelung, Taiwan in 1969. She earned a B.A. in Philosophy from National Chengchi University in 1992. She worked as a journalist before becoming an indie film director.

She entered into film making because of her attraction to the combination of content and form. She has been heralded as the most talented documentary director in the recent years of Taiwan.^[1] She has also received various festival awards around the world for films.

Chou and Hoho Liu are an openly lesbian couple. Chou "is one of the few openly lesbian filmmakers in the world, and the only one in Taiwan," according to AfterEllen.^[2] She is currently filming a six-film series called the Six Asian Cities Rainbow Project (亞洲六城彩虹計劃). She is trying to finish as quickly as possible and worries she will go missing while filming, since many of the locations have rules against films presenting LGBT content.^[3]

Works

Documentary

• Looking For The Forgotten Artists 1997, 45 mins
• Artist And His Daughter 1997, 23 mins
• Memories Of The Taiwanese Master 1997, 47 mins
• Yi Shi Zai Hai Xia Zhong ("Lost in the Strait") 1998, 48 mins
• Being Ceased 1998, 60 mins
• Mother And Son 1998, 65 mins
• Democracy Show 1998, 53 mins
• Wanderers' Bay 1998, 60 mins
• Floating Islands 2000, 288 mins
• Before The Radiation 2000, 22 mins
• Headhunting Festival 2000, 54 mins
• Zou Zu Zhan Ji 2000, 56 mins
• Corners 2001, 66 mins
• Poles Extremity 2002, 56 mins
• The Kinmenese Tracks 2003, 64 mins
• Father In The Blacklist 2004, 56 mins

Film

• A Film About The Body 1996, 62 mins
• Splendid Float 2004, 71 mins
• The Road On The Air 2006, 82 mins
• Spider Lilies 2007, 97 mins (Teddy Award, 2007)
• Drifting Flowers 2008, 97 mins
• Wave Breaker 2009, 86 mins
• Ripples of Desire 2012, 110 mins
• The Substitute 2017
• We are Gamily 2017
• Wrath of Desire 2020
• Untold Herstory 2022

Television

• The Rise and Fall of Qing Dynasty (滿清十三皇朝) 1987
• Gloomy Salad Days (死神少女) 2010
• (因為愛你) 2020^[4]

Awards

Corners

• Winner of the 2002 Taipei Film Festival for Best Documentary

Poles Extremity

• Winner of the 2003 Marseille Festival of Documentary Film for Best Documentary

Splendid Float

• Winner of the 2004 Golden Horse Award for Best Make Up and Costume Design
• Winner of the 2004 Golden Horse Award for Best Original Film Song
• Winner of the 2004 Golden Horse Award for Best Taiwanese Film Of The Year
• Winner of the 1st CJ Asia Independent Film Festival for Audience Award

Spider Lilies

• Winner of the 2007 Teddy Award for Best Gay/Lesbian Feature Film at the Berlin Film Festival

See also

• List of female film and television directors
• List of LGBT films directed by women
• List of lesbian filmmakers

Further reading

• Web site: Lo. Malinda. Interview With Zero Chou. AfterEllen. May 4, 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20080716040640/http://www.afterellen.com/people/2008/5/zerochou. July 16, 2008.

Notes and References

1. Book: New Chinese-Language Documentaries: Ethics, Subject and Place. Chiu. Kuei-fen. Zhang. Yingjin. 2014-11-21. Routledge. 9781317936947. en.
2. News: Interview With Zero Chou - AfterEllen. 2008-05-04. AfterEllen. 2017-09-01. en-US.
3. News: Interview: Director Zero Chou on making LGBT films in the Greater China region. Lens. The News. 2017-08-06. Cinema Escapist. 2017-09-07. en-US.
4. Web site: 2020 因為愛你 on Instagram. 2020-06-12.