This year’s Oregon Media Arts Fellowship given each year to filmmakers who have shown a commitment to the moving image arts and pushing their practice with new and engaging work was awarded to Mila Zuo.

2019 Oregon Media Arts Fellowship Awards is being presented as part of the Northwest Film Center’s ongoing Northwest Tracking series. Northwest Tracking showcases the work of independent filmmakers living and working in the Northwest—Alaska, British Columbia, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington—whose work reflects the vibrant cinematic culture of the region.

The Northwest Film Center administers the Fellowship, which this year was funded by the Oregon Arts Commission.

Mila Zuo

Mila Zuo is Assistant Professor of Film Studies in the School of Writing, Literature, and Film at Oregon State University. She received her Ph.D. in Cinema and Media Studies from the Department of Film, TV, and Digital Media at UCLA in 2015. Her research interests include transnational Asian and Asian/American cinemas, film philosophy, acting and performance, star studies, feminist and queer theory, and critical race and ethnicity studies. Her current book manuscript examines the affective world-making of contemporary Chinese and diasporic Chinese women film stars. Her research appears or is forthcoming in Feminist Media Histories journal;  Journal of Chinese Cinemas; Celebrity Studies journal; Exploiting East Asian Cinemas: Genre, Circulation, Reception; The Palgrave Handbook of Asian Cinema;and Dangdai Dianying (Contemporary Cinema).

As a film- and video-maker, Zuo has written, directed, and produced short narrative films, documentaries, and music videos. Zuo’s short narrative film,Carnal Orient (2016) premiered at Slamdance International Film Festival and was an official selection at a dozen international film festivals, screening domestically and internationally in locations including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Palm Beach, Portland, London, Singapore, Nagoya, Osaka, and the Czech Republic. Carnal Orient earned Special Mention Experimental Film at the 2016 DisOrient Asian American Film Festival, and Zuo’s creative work has been covered in publications including Bust, Paper magazine, KoreAm journal, and Hollywomen. Zuo is currently in pre-production on her second narrative short, Kindred.