From a working-class family, Wang Chao worked for a number of years at an important steel mill. During the same period, as he loved film, literature and philosophy, he wrote poems and read every film magazine he could lay his hands on. When he was laid off, he enrolled at the Beijing Film School and became a film critic. Following an article on Chen Kaige's Yellow Earth, Wang Chao was approached by Kaige to become his assistant. He then went on to work on the great Chinese director's Farewell My Concubine and The Emperor and the Assassin.
Also a novelist, Chao wrote and directed his first feature The Orphan of Anyang in 2001, which he shot without a permit. Portraying China's dropouts with poignancy, the film screened at the Directors' Fortnight and was one of the highlights of the Cannes Film Festival. Wang Chao, who claims to be inspired by Bresson and Antonioni, shot his second feature in Inner Mongolia. The story of a guilt-ridden miner, Day and Night is a meditation on the socioeconomic evolution of China. The film was an award winner at the 2004 Nantes Festival des Trois Continents. In 2006, Luxury Car addressed the profound transformations affecting contemporary China and garnered the Un Certain Regard Award at the Cannes Film Festival.
Les Films du Losange
