Born in Beijing, China, in 1968, he is considered one of the pioneers of the sixth generation of Chinese directors. He made his debut in 1994 with ‘Dirt’, and a decade later his film ‘Eyes of a Beauty’ (2002) was included in The Valladolid Festival’s retrospective dedicated to Chinese cinema. In 2009, he premiered ‘Cow’ in the Orizzonti section of the Venice Film Festival before winning the awards for best adapted screenplay and best actor at the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival. Three years later, he shot ‘Design of Death’, followed by works such as ‘The Chef, The Actor, The Scoundrel’ (2013) and ‘Mr. Six’ (2015), which closed the Venice Film Festival and was a notable box office hit in his country. In 2019, he joined several emerging Chinese filmmakers in the collective film ‘My People, My Country’, which became one of the biggest successes of Chinese cinema of all time. ‘Black Dog’ (2024), his latest feature film, had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the grand prize in the Un Certain Regard section.