Ketchup & Soya Sauce

Born and raised in GuangZhou-China, immigrated to Montreal-Canada, and now based in Toronto, ZhiMin Hu is a Chinese Canadian independent filmmaker and a Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema and WIDC alumna.

She is fascinated by stories that explore human nature and psychology, promote humanity and enlightenment, and provoke reflection on social aspects.

She has demonstrated great success in working with non-actors and children. Over the years, she has grown into a multi-genre storyteller with a flavor of Magic realism.

After graduated from Film Production at Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema (Concordia University), she had written, produced, directed and edited one feature documentary and seven shorts, including fiction, documentary, and experimental film.

Her works have been presented in many international and local film festivals, including the Cannes Film Festival Short Film Corner, Montreal World Film Festival, Shnit International Short Film Festival, Fantasia Film Festival, and the CBC FaceOff Short Film Competition, amongst others.

In 2014, Sophie’s Letter , selected by Prime Centre and won Special Mention Award at TopShorts Film Festival.
In 2016, A Cold Summer Night (28min) was supported by NFB and later became part of BAnQ’s collection;
In 2018, I’m Waiting for Mama won the Best Canadian Short at RIFFA;
In 2019, Ketchup & Soya Sauce, a feature documentary,was broadcasted on CBC, it’s now available on CBC GEM.
In 2020, she finished the second draft of her first feature fiction, Under the Red Umbrella and started to write another feature fiction Never Alive, Already Dead.
In addition to her directing skills, ZhiMin also exhibits great passion and expertise as an editor and is known for her attention to detail and an ability to shine the essence of the story. Her abundant editing experience not only include fiction and documentary, but also television commercials, reality TV, comedy productions and television documentaries. All this experience contributes to form her “outside of box” vision.

Besides directing and editing, ZhiMin is quite active in other fields. She is a passionate photographer, she was a film critic for a Chinese weekly newspaper, a TV host and researcher for the TV show Sino-Montreal on CJNT, a jury member for the 2012 Amérasia Film Festival, and 2008 Montreal Sichuan earthquake fundraising event organizer.