He was born in Xi’an, China, in 1967. He studied photography at the Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts in Shenyang, an industrial city where, years later, he would film ‘West of the Tracks’ (2002). In April and May 2014, Wang Bing had a major show at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. In 2017 he was awarded the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival for ‘Mrs. Fang’, and in 2018, ‘Dead Souls’ was selected for the out of competition segment of the Cannes Film Festival. He presented two new films at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival: ‘Youth (Spring)’ in the Official Competition, and ‘Man in Black’ as a Special Screening. In 2024 he presented ‘Youth (Hard Times)’ (Fipresci Award, International Jury Special Mention and Youth Award) at Locarno and ‘Youth (Homecoming)’ at Venice.