Lou Ye (1965-)
Born in 1965 in Shanghai, Lou Ye developed an interest in painting when he was a child. He studied painting in a Shanghai Animation Studio-sponsored vocational school and worked briefly on several animation films. In 1985, after a failed attempt to get into the Central Academy of Fine Arts, his first choice for college education, Lou Ye entered the Beijing Film Academy to study directing. He was one of the most active students in BFA’s “Class of 1985.” Lou returned to Shanghai after graduating from BFA in 1989 and spent several years working as a producer and assistant director. In 1993, Lou made his feature debut
Weekend Lover, which won him the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Prize for Best Director at the 1996 Mannheim-Heidelberg Film Festival. Financed by non-studio money, the film established Lou as an emerging independent filmmaker in China.
Lou Ye is arguably the most stylistic of China’s “Sixth Generation” directors. Although his second feature
Don’t Be Young was nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Sound at the 1995 Golden Rooster Award Ceremony of China, it was his 1999 feature
Suzhou River that made Lou an internationally acclaimed art-house auteur. Banned from theatrical release in China,
Suzhou River won many international awards, chief among them the VRPO Tiger Award at the Twenty-ninth Rotterdam International Film Festival. Lou’s fourth feature
Purple Butterfly, shot with an official permit from the Film Bureau, is a personal and stylistic take on his hometown Shanghai during the period of Japanese occupation.
Summer Palace, Lou’s fifth, premiered at the 2006 Cannes International Film Festival.
Lou Ye Filmography: 
