
Xiao Zhang
Directing
Biography
Xiao Zhang is a filmmaker and artist based between Dongguan, China, and Los Angeles. Their work centers on personal poetics derived from memory, afterimages and mythology. They consider film a haptic medium, a lucid dream of traces, absence, and exile. They hold an MFA in Film/Video from California Institute of the Arts and a BFA from Beijing Film Academy. Their work has been shown internationally at festivals and museums including the BFI London Film Festival, Hong Kong International Film Festival, CROSSROADS, Beijing International Short Film Festival, REDCAT (Los Angeles), and Tai Kwun (Hong Kong), among others.
Known For

A calling inhabits the blank pages, unfolding a secret writing of hers. The unseen written traces seep from the murmuring land, pushing through fragmented voices to become new forms, beings made material. Framed as a dialogue with my grandmother, this film explores an alternative form of personal writing by Chinese women in political shifts, absent and abundant. The 'blank' becomes an image, carrying a search for agency; of land transformed and of women unheard. By breaking down linguistic structures, the film opens a space for imagining, reading, and performing, allowing for emergence.
Words Fly Back to the Black Earth

Six immigrant friends constellate in Los Angeles while reflecting on intuition, perception, and the mythologies of a city. Blending documentary footage, voiced recollections, and diaristic entries, the film gathers fragments of lived experience and speculation into a collective imaginary of Los Angeles.
Somewhere Else

A time remnant inhabits a personal space with a secret, private, unspoken word of one's being. Sliding planes of window and time, throwing drifts of the inner and the outer self, the film seeks in the interval of memory for a transitory reunion with my family.
A Throwing Forth

In a foreign city, a young woman wanders through the night in search of someone from her dreams. Amidst urban structures and encounters with strangers, she may not be dreaming alone.