Shengze Zhu is a documentary filmmaker and producer who was born and raised in China, and now resides in Chicago. She has been collaborating with her partner Zhengfan Yang as dynamic duo since 2010. They co-founded a production company Burn The Film, and since 2012, it has produced four feature films and a number of shorts, including creative documentaries, author fictions and experimental films. Shengze’s directorial debut OUT OF FOCUS (2014) premiered at the Cinéma du Réel International Documentary Festival (France), and screened at the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival, Festival International de Films de Femmes de Créteil (France), FRONTEIRA International Documentary & Experimental Film Festival (Brazil), among others. Her second feature documentary ANOTHER YEAR (2016) premiered at the Visions du Réel International Film Festival (Switzerland) and was awarded the Sesterce d’or/Best Film; it also received the Grand Prize at the RIDM Montreal International Documentary Festival, the Critic's Award at Olhar de Cinema (Brazil) and screened at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (Japan), Lincoln Center/Art of the Real (USA), Jeonju International Film Festival (South Korea), New Horizons International Film Festival (Poland), among many others. ANOTHER YEAR was honored as "Top 10 Films of the Year" by 24 Images magazine (Canada) in 2016. Shengze has also served as producer for films directed by Zhengfan: DISTANT (2013, fiction, Festival del Film Locarno), WHERE ARE YOU GOING (2016, documentary, International Film Festival Rotterdam), DOWN THERE (2018, short, Venice International Film Festival).