Full Moon Club

Zao Wang was born in Beijing, China, and was raised in a family of two generations of filmmakers. From a very young age, he wanted to follow in his family’s footsteps. He was involved in acting and dubbing at Beijing Film Studio where he grew up. He moved to the United States with his parents when he was 14 and learned English from scratch while attending high school in Mississippi. He received a B.S in Physics and B.A. in Philosophy from Millsaps College, and a MFA in Directing from New York University.

As a bilingual writer and director, Zao’s work has premiered at Tribeca, Fantasporto, Fantasia, Yubari, Fantaspoa, Palm Springs, etc. His film Honeymoon Suite premiered at Tribeca and won Best Director and Best Horror/Thriller at NBCUniversal Shorts Fest, and was optioned by Jen Salke and NBC to be developed into a TV series.

His next film, 5 States of Fear, was funded by NBC’s Chiller TV and aired in 2014 in the U.S. to rave reviews. Zao was chosen by J.J. Abrams as his only Directing Fellow in 2015, where he directed a short film, Full Moon Club, for Bad Robot.

His feature directorial début, The Precipice Game, a Chinese-language thriller produced by Fundamental Films, was released in China and worldwide through IM Global in 2016. It’s currently available for streaming on Tencent platform, with over 90 million views.

Zao has an overall deal with Tencent Pictures. Among the many projects under development, he is working with David Goyer on a sci-fi project for Tencent. His next feature film, Savage Paradise, is an immigrant detective thriller set in Los Angeles, produced by the veteran producer Terence Chang.

As an Emerging Director at NBCUniversal, Zao shadowed on NBC’s The Night Shift and USA’s hit show The Purge (S2), and will be directing an episode when the show renews for S3. He was a finalist for HBOAccess Directing Fellow, and is currently a member of the Sony Diverse Directors Program. He will be directing a crime thriller mini-series for Fox TV International in 2020.