Chloe Zhao Quotes

The films Sony Pictures Classics has distributed throughout the years have been of great inspiration to me. I’m very excited to find such a great home for ‘The Rider.’

Coming from a country that’s rapidly changing, I love the idea of a place like South Dakota where nothing has really changed.

What defines a Western? I’ve probably seen three my whole life.

I often feel like an outsider wherever I go, so I’m always attracted to stories about identity and the meaning of home.

I’m heavily influenced by European and American cinema, but the further I get in my career, the more I find myself looking back East for inspiration.

I’m constantly not on the right side of history. I sympathize with the soldiers in the enemy’s camp. For example in WWII, we know the Nazis and the Japanese were wrong. But I sympathize with the individual story of a soldier who was drafted into that.

It’s important to make time for yourself.

‘Meek’s Cutoff’ by Kelly Reichardt – it’s beautifully shot. It’s a complex story. The filmmaker gave a very patient and feminine touch to a story that takes place during a period of history that’s very masculine, without losing any of the unforgiving harshness of the reality where the characters found themselves in.

I want to make more films in the heartland, the forgotten America.

Some of the most hard-working, generous people I’ve met in my whole life didn’t really want to vote for him but did. My calling is to step onto the other side and humanise and portray the struggles of many Trump voters.

A documentary film-maker can’t help but use poetry to tell the story. I bring truth to my fiction. These things go hand in hand.

What I love about America is not necessarily the American Dream but the fact that there’s so much spirit of fighting to continue to dream once the dreams are broken.

Unfortunately, I think I drifted so much growing up that I don’t have a strong sense of identity. I don’t feel at home anywhere, and because of that, I think I’m more of a chameleon.

Maybe, as a Chinese woman, I was never told I would be a filmmaker, so I didn’t have the ego set up.

I constantly modify myself. There are downfalls to that because you are constantly trying to figure out who you are, but at the same time, I’m blessed with the lack of base paint on the canvas.

Meek’s Cutoff by Kelly Reichardt. It’s beautifully shot. It’s a complex story. The filmmaker gave a very patient and feminine touch to a story that takes place during a period of history that’s very masculine, without losing any of the unforgiving harshness of the reality where the characters found themselves in.

I was a pretty free-spirited kid. I was part of a notorious group of troublemakers who didn’t do well in school but had a great time exploring Beijing from the inside out.

I was born in Beijing and raised in England and America. I studied political science in college and film in graduate school in New York.