Mel Sangyi Zhao

BIOGRAPHIE

Mel Sangyi Zhao is a Chinese female film director based in LA. Born and raised in China, she studied French culture, and psychology before studying film at Université Paris Sorbonne-Nouvelle and Université Paris 8 in France. Meanwhile, she traveled through Europe before pursuing an MFA in Film Directing at the California Institute of the Arts. Fluent in three languages and well-traveled, she likes to think of herself as a world citizen. She is passionate about telling the story of female sexuality, sexual identity and societal isolation from female perspective. In 2021, the script of her short film, Return to Youth, a drama-comedy short film, made it to the semi-final in Los Angeles Chinese Film Festival’s short screenplay competition. The same year her short drama-sci-fi script Through The Holes earned second place in Ivy Film Festivals Short Screenplay Competition and competes as a semi-finalist for the BlueCat Screenplay Contest. Her second-year film, an alternative horror, Last Days in North Hollywood, was selected for the CalArts Film School showcase. Currently, she is developing a creative concept pitch during her participation of the Summer 2022 Gotham Film and Media Career Development Program. The meantime, she is interning for Justin Lin’s production company Perfect Storm where she reads through material to provide coverage and opinion as well as assist the creative executives in pre-production and development.

FILMOGRAPHIE