Chloe Zhao

I want to make more films in the heartland, the forgotten America.

The films Sony Pictures Classics has distributed throughout the years have been of great inspiration to me. I'm very excited to find such a great home for 'The Rider.'

I would love to return to China one day to make films. I've been away for too long, so I'll need to spend some time back home before I can come up with an idea.

I'm heavily influenced by European and American cinema, but the further I get in my career, the more I find myself looking back East for inspiration.

I was a pretty free-spirited kid. I was part of a notorious group of troublemakers who didn't do well in school but had a great time exploring Beijing from the inside out.

What I love about America is not necessarily the American Dream but the fact that there's so much spirit of fighting to continue to dream once the dreams are broken.

Some of the most hard-working, generous people I've met in my whole life didn't really want to vote for him but did. My calling is to step onto the other side and humanise and portray the struggles of many Trump voters.

Maybe, as a Chinese woman, I was never told I would be a filmmaker, so I didn't have the ego set up.

I constantly modify myself. There are downfalls to that because you are constantly trying to figure out who you are, but at the same time, I'm blessed with the lack of base paint on the canvas.

I'm constantly not on the right side of history. I sympathize with the soldiers in the enemy's camp. For example in WWII, we know the Nazis and the Japanese were wrong. But I sympathize with the individual story of a soldier who was drafted into that.

Unfortunately, I think I drifted so much growing up that I don't have a strong sense of identity. I don't feel at home anywhere, and because of that, I think I'm more of a chameleon.

I was born in Beijing and raised in England and America. I studied political science in college and film in graduate school in New York.

'Meek's Cutoff' by Kelly Reichardt - it's beautifully shot. It's a complex story. The filmmaker gave a very patient and feminine touch to a story that takes place during a period of history that's very masculine, without losing any of the unforgiving harshness of the reality where the characters found themselves in.

It's important to make time for yourself.

I grew up in big cities my whole life, and in my late 20s, I just felt like I was looking for something else.

Coming from a country that's rapidly changing, I love the idea of a place like South Dakota where nothing has really changed.

I was born and raised in China, Mandarin is my first language, and I definitely know America. I think that will be my strength, to try and bring the two worlds together.

What defines a Western? I've probably seen three my whole life.

The Indian cowboy is such a uniquely American contradiction.

It's very important for feminism for us to tell our daughters that they should be strong. But to tell our sons that they can be vulnerable, to have these characters on screen that are not perfectly masculine cowboys that never fail, for our boys to change their psyche as well, that's equally important for feminism.

I often feel like an outsider wherever I go, so I'm always attracted to stories about identity and the meaning of home.

A documentary film-maker can't help but use poetry to tell the story. I bring truth to my fiction. These things go hand in hand.