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Zhu Shen

San Diego, California, United States

Film Projects

Bio

Zhu Shen is an award-winning writer, film producer and director, currently writing, directing, and producing her character-driven, personal documentary feature debut, JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MILES, that Janet Yang, the legendary JOY LUCK CLUB Exec Producer & Governor of the Academy of Motion Pictures called "an ode to the bond between mother and son, told with radical vulnerability and honesty," and “a deeply moving look into the love that binds a family." The film is also endorsed by David Magdael (Co-director of Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, Academy of Motion Pictures Member, Leading Documentary Film Media Strategist) , Annette Insdorf (Columbia University Film Professor & Historian), and Josh Chuck (Chinatown Rising Director).

Zhu is best known for two Oscar-qualified, critically acclaimed animation shorts she produced: INGRID PITT: BEYOND THE FOREST (2011) about a young Holocaust survivor, animated by her 11-year-old son Perry Chen, and CHANGYOU'S JOURNEY in honor of her late husband, the Stanford-trained cancer researcher and biotech founder whose life was taken away by cancer itself, written and directed by her son Perry Chen in 2018. 

CHANGYOU'S JOURNEY premiered at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF KIDS), screened at 19 international film festivals, and won five film festival awards at Newport Beach Film Festival, Arizona International Film Festival, Los Angeles Animation Festival, Palm Springs International Animation Festival, and Film Now Festival in 2018.

INGRID PITT: BEYOND THE FOREST won three US film festival awards and screened at over 30 international film festivals. At age 11, Chen was the youngest animator to qualify for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.