PORTFOLIO


LILLY ZHUANG
zhuanglilly.jpg@gmail.com

about the filmmaker

FILM

HERE [premiered at BFI FLARE 2025]
narrative fiction; ‘25

in an empty space
creative documentary; ‘25

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CYAN
experimental documentary; ‘25

When I Look At You
experimental documentary; ‘24

AND I THOUGHT OF HOME
experimental documentary; ‘23

AS FAR AS OUR EYES CAN SEE  [premiered at BFI Future Film Festival]
experimental documentary; ‘21




PHOTOGRAPHY [includes]

01. MY MOTHER WAS A GIRL ONCE (’23)
         [multiple countries]
“homesick”

02. GENTLE HANDS (’23)
         [U.S.]
“touch”

03. CAN’T SEE THE TREES (’23—’24)
        [multiple countries]
“our forest”

04. PASSAGES (’22—’24)
        [multiple countries]
“a single line”


WRITING/PRINT [includes]

01. LU LUO: THOUGHTS ON A LINE
artist’s catalogue
   catalogue writer/editor/producer

02. ZHUANG HONG YI: KALEIDOSCOPE
artist’s catalogue
   catalogue writer/editor/producer

03. Notable Essays [academia]

“Tracing the Gap: (Re)negotiating Melancholic Space in the South China New Wave" (MA Dissertation, ‘22)*

“Performance of the Everyday: The Politics and Poetics of Boredom in the Films of Wong Kar-wai” (BA Dissertation, ‘20)* 

(*available to read upon request)

[still from HERE]

DIR. LILLY ZHUANG
WRITTEN BY PETE RESTRICK
PROD. BY CHRISTIAN DAMETTO

Past screenings
BFI FLARE
- 23.03.2025 @10.45am/NFT1 BFI Southbank
- 26.03.2025 @8.50pm
- 30.03.2025 @5pm
FLICKERS’ RHODE ISLAND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
- 09.08.2025 @6.30pm/Avon Cinema
HERE (2025) [narrative fiction]

HERE tells the story of the unlikely romance between Kaden and Lucas, two teenagers resigned to work the East Riding strawberry fields over the Summer.

Desires disentangle in this new, uninhibited, and sun-drenched environment, as the two boys tentatively begin to explore their feelings towards one another in secret, a kinship that forces them to confront their own internalised homophobia, shame, and sense of belonging.”
[still from HERE]





IN AN EMPTY SPACE (2025)
[creative documentary]

DIR. LILLY ZHUANG
CAST: FU CHENGXI 


[still from IN AN EMPTY SPACE]
Tracing the thoughts of a Chinese actor reflecting on what makes a character, 'IN AN EMPTY SPACE' makes visible the roots and motions of a person in the process of becoming, weaving together the narrative of a diasporic stage between his London flat and the woods in which his alter ego roams, echoing words of a young Hamlet.










AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CYAN (2025)
[creative documentary]


From the borderlines: a lyrical landscape of cyanotypes, AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CYAN is a portrait film in fragmentation, engendered by thoughts on queer personhood and displacement through the lens of creative fugitivity.

DIR. LILLY ZHUANG
with MATT/ILDA GOWLING

[still from AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CYAN]



Following fragments of conversations, a mother and daughter grapple with the narratives that inform their lives – across cultural, geographical, and generational gaps – while pondering self-utterance because and despite the frustration of language.



[still from WHEN I LOOK AT YOU]
[creative documentary]

DIR. LILLY ZHUANG
with LU LUO


[still from WHEN I LOOK AT YOU]

AND I THOUGHT OF HOME (2023)
[creative documentary]

DIR. LILLY ZHUANG
"A letter to a city in pieces for a voice on the other side of the phone that echoes in a song sung for a mother tracing the timber of a line of fragmented light; shimmering, flowering, shifting over the course of a day spent thinking."


[still from AND I THOUGHT OF HOME]

AND I THOUGHT OF HOME is an experimental project centred on the notion of chance and contingency as five creatives, strangers to each other, are put into conversation through their multimedia work, addressing feelings of loss, longing, nostalgia, and frustration to document the liminal place of home at the interstices of sociopolitics and personal poetics.
[still from AND I THOUGHT OF HOME]



[still from AS FAR AS OUR EYES CAN SEE]
AS FAR AS OUR EYES CAN SEE (2021)
[creative documentary]

DIR. LILLY ZHUANG
CAST: MITHUL BAJORE, ARLO GOLDMAN, REED STOLZENFELS, VIOLA UGOLINI, LILLY ZHUANG 
AS FAR AS OUR EYES CAN SEE is a play on Jonas Mekas’ idea of diary filmmaking through deeply personal expression made plural. Five people record whatever their attention was drawn to without any further instructions, expectations, or limitations, for 24 hours across the span of a week.

A group of friends' attempt to snatch the eternal out of the ever-fleeting, a way of stopping something that overpowers all of us: the flow of time. 
[still from AS FAR AS OUR EYES CAN SEE]
AS FAR AS OUR EYES CAN SEE within the Restrictions of Temporality and the Limits of a Hundred and Sixty-Eight Hours: A Visual Diary written by five hands instead of one. 

Past screenings




A LAST LULLABY: MEMORIES OF HAN OPERA [in development]
DIR/PROD LILLY ZHUANG
A tale of a dying art, A LAST LULLABY weaves an image of Chinese Han opera through the voice of someone who used to enchant its stage.

Focussing on the politics and aesthetics of crossdressing, the film unfolds across time and abstract recollection to question the notion of performance in spaces both public and private.
                                                                                                                    
[moodboard image]

                                                    [moodboard image]






MY MOTHER WAS  GIRL ONCE (2023)
[photography series]


Juxtaposing her mother’s stories of childhood with the reality of what she found in her family’s hometown, this series of images portray the fragility of personal memory within a rapidly changing sociopolitical landscape in Guanghan, China. 

MY MOTHER WAS A GIRL ONCE is an attempt – and the ultimate failure – to come to terms with the artist’s own roots, growing up so far away from the spaces her mother knew as a child.














ZHUANG LILLY© ZHUANG LILLY @ZHUANG LILLY [INSTAGRAM]