Jia Zhangke
Gender: Male
Born: 1970
Nationality: China
Movies: 24 City, Cry Me a River, Dong, I Wish I Knew, In Public, Platform, Still Life, The Pickpocket, The World, Unknown Pleasures, Useless, Xiao Shan Going Home, Yulu
Jia Zhangke (simplified Chinese: 贾樟柯; traditional Chinese: 賈樟柯; pinyin: Jiǎ Zhāngkē; born 1970 in Fenyang, Shanxi, China) is a Chinese film director. He is generally regarded as a leading figure of the "Sixth Generation" movement of Chinese cinema, a group that also includes such figures as Wang Xiaoshuai and Zhang Yuan.
Jia's early films, a loose trilogy based in his home province of Shanxi, were made outside of China's state-run film bureaucracy, and therefore are considered "underground" films. Beginning in 2004, Jia's status in his own country was raised when he was allowed to direct his fourth feature film, The World, with state approval.
Jia's films have received critical praise and have been recognized internationally, notably winning the Venice Film Festival's top award for Still Life. He has been described by critics and film directors as being perhaps "the most important filmmaker working in the world today."
Jia's interest in film began in the early 1990s, as an art student at the Shanxi University in Taiyuan. On a lark, Jia attended a screening of Chen Kaige's masterpiece, Yellow Earth. The film, according to Jia, was life changing, and convinced the young man that he
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