Ziyao Liu is a writer/director based on Earth. Born in the “West Virginia” of China and now living in Los Angeles, she creates character-driven narratives about women, especially Asian women. Through experimentation of hybrid forms and genres, she wants to capture everyday moments that reveal their strengths and weaknesses and reimagine their lives that are otherwise constrained by reality.
A member of BAFTA Connect and a fellow of Armed with a Camera, she earned her directing MFA at the University of California, Los Angeles, and her BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her short films have been selected to screen at multiple Academy-qualifying and worldwide film festivals.
Her feature script WHALE is a semifinalist of the 2023 Humanitas New Voices Fellowship. Her short film DAISY IS GONE won Special Jury Recognition for Narrative Short at the 2024 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. THE WHISTLE, a short film she directed in the 2023 CBS Leadership Pipeline Challenge, which won $50,000 donation from CBS to the non-profit Boyle Heights Beat. Ziyao Liu is also a recipient of the 2022 Delia Salvi Memorial Award, 2021 Motion Picture Association of America Award, and 2020 Voices with Impact x Art with Impact Grant.
She spends her free time tending her plants and walking in her neighborhood.
Samples and references upon request.