Zhang Yang is a Chinese film director, screenwriter, and occasional actor. He studied Chinese literature in Beijing, and later transferred to the Central Academy of Drama where he graduated in 1992. His first film Spicy Love Soup opened in Competition at Tokyo International Film Festival. It was followed by Shower, a realistic gaze at contemporary Beijing, which achieved great recognition internationally as well as in China, where it was successfully distributed. His next film was Quitting, where Zhang Yang got even closer to reality: the film fictionalises and re-enacts the real life of the main actor Jia Hongsheng, his struggle with drug addiction, his parents, fellow inmates in a mental institution, and Zhang Yang himself. His subsequent films, Sunflower, Getting Home, Full Circle, travelled internationally to numerous festivals and where distributed with great recognition in China. Paths of the Soul premiered at Toronto International Film Festival 2015, screening with great success in many international festivals including Busan, Rotterdam, Black Nights, Goteborg and Hong Kong. The film was released in North America and Japan during the summer 2016. Soul on a String, his latest film, premiered in competition at the Shanghai International Film Festival in June 2016 and received the Best Cinematography award.