Media

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Bochen, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.

About six years ago I moved to Los Angeles from Beijing to make films. It was a dream I had from the time I was really young growing up in China. I loved learning English and learning about the world. It wasn’t easy to get permission to travel outside of China, but I took every chance I could to see outside my town and outside my country.

I loved meeting people from other countries, hearing new perspectives and learning about different cultures. My family and friends wanted me to lay down some roots, but I always felt pulled to see more, to do more.

Of course, we need more diversity, but the Academy is making progress. Some wonder why this can’t happen faster. As a woman of color in one of the most exciting film cultures in the world, I’m starting to understand why.

You see, our film nation works as both a democracy and a republic. We each get to make our own choices for how we spend our money at the movies and each one of those choices influences the market for the types of movies that will be greenlit. It’s very democratic in that way. 

However, our movie nation is also like a republic, because someone has to make the choice for the kind of movies that are made and easily accessible to large audiences. Now that I am no longer simply a film-lover, but a filmmaker, I see that it’s my small choices that help determine the landscape of the film universe.

Successful producers work tirelessly when they take on a project…Bochen Zhang is one of those award-winning producers and she welcomes all the challenges producers endure. A few of her successful projects include being one of the producers for Netflix’s Ultimate BeastMaster, HBO’s Wonderland, Disney Channel’s Virtual High and AMC’s The Walking Dead: Red Machete, which took home an Emmy Nomination earlier this year for Outstanding Short Form Comedy or Drama series.  It also received a WGA Nomination in the Short Form New Media Adapted category.

In 2015, Ms. Zhang was invited to serve as guest lecturer discussing film producing at the University of New Orleans. Driftwood is their student publication.

Zhang also helped produce USA Film Festival Award-winner Cristian Sulser’s (Scrabble) Goodbye Vesna and, most recently, Asian American International Film Festival Award-winner Tiffanie Hsu’s (Sutures) Wonderland starring Joan Chen, which took home the Jury Award at UCLA’s MFA Director’s Spotlight at the DGA theater, and was chosen as an Official Selection at the 2016 Hawaii International Film Festival. 

“Two of the things I love about Bochen are her ability to get the right people on board and to stay within budget. Making great films is about finding the best people and using every penny to maximize the quality of the production, and that’s exactly what she does,” said writer/director Camille Stochitch. 

“Joan Chen is such an icon of Chinese cinema. It was the thrill of a lifetime to work with her,” said Zhang. As a Chinese woman and a filmmaker, I’m grateful to HBO for offering a platform for independent producers to tell diverse stories from underrepresented voices.” 

Zhang is typical of the artists and filmmakers who are now in demand as international partnerships drive the film industry. Zhang began her career in China working in commercial production for brands like MasterCard, VW and Procter & Gamble before entering the world of creative production. “I started to become restless with the kinds of production we were doing,” said Zhang. “When I learned how important characters and storytelling were to every kind of media, that changed everything for me.”